Did taxpayers buy a 6-seat airplane for this Missouri auditor candidate’s company?

Did taxpayers subsidize the purchase of a six-seat aircraft for Missouri Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick, who is running for state auditor?

Missouri voters may want to hear the answer to that question. They’ll want to examine Fitzpatrick’s record, and that of the company he founded, called MariCorp U.S., based in Shell Knob, Missouri.

It bills itself as an industry leader in the manufacture and installation of boat docks. Fitzpatrick founded the company at the age of 17. It has roughly 70 employees.

In late 2019, MariCorp U.S. purchased a used Piper Malibu Meridian aircraft, a six-seat single engine turboprop with a pressurized cabin. Figures available online say the average price for a pre-owned Meridian is $1.1 million, although the campaign says it cost closer to $800,000.

Federal Aviation Administration records show an aircraft certificate was issued to MariCorp on March 11, 2020, although Fitzpatrick’s campaign says a “purchase agreement” for the plane was actually signed in December 2019.

The aircraft (FAA N97BF) needed work before it could be certified, the campaign says.

Those dates are important because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Less than a month after the airplane purchase was finalized, records show, Fitzpatrick’s firm applied for and received a loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which was part of the nation’s pandemic response.

MariCorp received a PPP loan for $690,400 on April 4, 2020. That means that Fitzpatrick’s company received federal help to pay its workers less than a month after completing purchase of an $800,000 aircraft.

MariCorp asked for a second PPP loan in 2021, this time for $646,071. A searchable database compiled by ProPublica says the first loan was forgiven, while the status of the second loan is listed as “unknown.” The campaign says both loans were forgiven.

Voters can do the math: MariCorp asked for and received more than $1.3 million from taxpayers, just to meet payroll, a few months after purchasing a $800,000 aircraft it still owns.

Fitzpatrick’s campaign says the two facts are unrelated. “MariCorp has utilized small company aircraft since 2016 to visit customers, perform project site visits, and transport employees across the country,” campaign adviser Steele Shippy told us.

“MariCorp was one of more than 5 million companies that utilized the Trump administration Paycheck Protection Program to ensure job security for its employees during a time of great economic uncertainty,” Shippy’s email said.

“MariCorp used every dollar of the funding received under the program to pay employees,” he said.

There doesn’t seem to have been any attempt to sell the plane in order to pay workers. In fact, Fitzpatrick uses the aircraft for campaign purposes as well as company business (one flight tracker shows repeated use in Missouri in July.)

We supported the PPP program, which provided essential income to workers hurt by the COVID-19 shutdowns. We are more skeptical of the need for a six-seat, pressurized aircraft for a company that twice asked taxpayers to cover its payroll, and whose founder uses the plane for political purposes.

Claire McCaskill, you may remember, took enormous heat for use of a private aircraft while in the Senate. Other politicians, including Fitzpatrick, deserve similar scrutiny.

“I have been a relentless fighter for taxpayers,” Fitzpatrick says on his auditor campaign website. We know a good place for him to continue that battle, if elected.

Fitzpatrick’s Republican primary opponent is David Gregory, a St. Louis attorney and state legislator. We’re examining his record, including allegations of a possible legal dust-up eight years ago. So far Gregory has not responded to our requests for comment.

We’ll let you know what we find.