A circle of earmarks to and campaign donations from a W.Va. non-profit organization continue even while Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., is still under investigation for earmarks to this group.

Board members, executives, and family members associated with the Vandalia Heritage Foundation gave nearly $10,000 between 2006 and 2008, benefiting both of Mollohan’s re-election campaigns.

Earlier this week we reported on the donations from Vandalia President Laura Kuhns and her husband, McCabe-Henley employee Donald Kuhns. The couple gave $5,400 between 2006 and 2008. The Kuhns and the Mollohan families are also co-investors in beachfront property on Bald Head Island, N.C. The properties had a total value in 2006 of $2 million.

During this same time period, Vandalia board member Jennifer Kinty donated $2,000 to the Mollohan Campaign. Vandalia board member Jeffrey Burum donated the second largest amount behind the Kuhns by donating $2,300. Burum is also the Executive Director of the California-based National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC), which received $31 million in earmarks from Mollohan between 2001 and 2006. Vandalia President Kuhns is on the board of the NHDC.

Between Kinty, Burum, and Laura and Donald Kuhns, $9,700 total was donated from Vandalia to Mollohan in two years. According to their 2007 990 tax returns, Vandalia took in $2,266,090 in total revenue. The group took in $1,613,761 from government grants; 71.23 percent of their total revenue. Direct public support on makes up 10.9 percent of Vandalia’s total revenue. The group had a deficit in 2007 of $309,564, but their net assets totaled $17,910,025.

As we reported Monday, Vandalia is one of five non-profit groups that have received the bulk of Mollohan’s earmarks, including NHDC, MountainMade, the Institute for Scientific Research, and the West Virginia High Technology Consortium. These groups received a total of $173 million between 1997 and 2006. Between 1999 and 2006 Vandalia received 92 percent of their funding from Mollohan earmarks. Mollohan is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for the last three years due to not reporting his income and the funneling of millions of dollars of earmarks to friends and associates.

Laura Kuhns is a former Mollohan staff member. Both Kuhn and her husband Donald worked in the real estate industry through McCabe-Henley, now named West Virginia Commercial LLC. Donald Kuhns still works for McCabe-Henley, which does business with Vandalia. McCabe-Henley received $69,300 in 2007 from Vandalia as an independent contractor, with Donald working for McCabe-Henley and Laura working for Vandalia.

Mollohan included $2 million for the design of a new Army National Guard facility on Fort Boreman Hill in Parkersburg, W.Va. in his 2010 appropriations request. The Wood County Development Authority is buying a piece of property on the hill for $4 million and recently named Vandalia as the project manager for the site.

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