With less than two weeks left until the April 1 elections, the biggest donors and fundraisers in the Colorado Springs City Council elections have taken shape.

All six of the City Council’s district seats are on the ballot this year. Four of the six races do not feature the current council member, potentially meaning a chance for the council to swing in a new direction.

According to City Clerk Sarah Johnson, 8.8% of voters have returned their ballots as of Friday morning. The return rates varied wildly across the city, from a 13% turnout from voters in District 1 to a 4% turnout in District 4.

According to the most recent campaign filings made with the city this week, more than $318,000 in campaign contributions have come in across all the candidates who have filed to run. The majority of those donations are concentrated among just five candidates who have each received more than $30,000 in campaign donations as of March 17.

The biggest fundraiser has been incumbent Councilmember Nancy Henjum, running for a second term in District 5. Henjum has received $45,533 in contributions by the March 17 filings for the council races, which includes a small amount left over from her campaign in 2021.

Henjum is running against three candidates for her reelection campaign, including former Colorado Springs police Officer Christopher Burns, who has brought in $30,565 in campaign donations.

The candidates with the second-most and third-most donations are competing against each other in District 3. Rick Gillit has received $44,745 in campaign funds as of mid-March, while Brandy Williams has received $40,494.

Tom Bailey is the other candidate with significant funding, with $38,500 in donations behind him in the campaign for District 2. The level of funding support is perhaps surprising given that Bailey is in the least competitive council race this year — the only other candidate who filed was Frank Chrisinger, who effectively suspended his campaign before the end of February.

Bailey has a connection with VENU, the company that owns the Ford Amphitheater in District 2. He owns a fire-pit suite at the amphitheater that is worth around $250,000, according to his financial disclosure reports with the city. VENU donated $2,500 to his campaign on March 4.

Bailey has said during campaign forums that he might have to recuse himself from votes related to Ford Amphitheater because of the suite.

Henjum’s largest contribution was $1,500 from Firefighters Local 5. Henjum had received larger contributions from developers when she first ran for council in 2021. She said this time she wanted to keep her campaign transparent and actively focused on gathering more individual donors.

“I can say with confidence it didn’t impact any of my votes, but people are concerned about that. So I decided, OK, I won’t take it this time, and people stepped up to give me the money I needed,” Henjum said.

Other than Henjum, all four of the other highest-earning candidates include major donations from developers in their funding. Bailey, Burns, Gillit and Williams have received between $1,000 and $2,500 in campaign contributions from La Plata Communities, the firm that worked on the Amara and Karman Line annexations.

Those four are also among the candidates endorsed by the Housing & Building Association of Colorado Springs, which comes with a campaign contribution of $10,000. Executive Officer Marla Novak said the association took the unusual step of endorsing Gillit and Williams in the same district because both candidates shared their positions.

“It’s important to have an informed electorate and that’s why we give directly to the candidates so that they can run a strong campaign. Both the candidates and this organization fully disclose those contributions,” Novak said via email.

Colorado Springs is one of the only cities in Colorado where campaign donations as large as the association provided are still allowed in city elections. In 2023, the legislature passed House Bill 1245 to enact maximum campaign contributions for municipal elections.

Under the law, which went into effect at the beginning of 2024, donations are limited to $400 for an individual and $4,000 for donor committees.

City spokesman Max D’Onofrio said the state limits did not apply to Colorado Springs because it was a home-rule issue protected by the city charter. The charter currently sets no maximum donor limits which led to multiple groups spending hundreds of thousands of dollars during the city’s 2023 mayoral campaign.

Henjum said it was worth the city council exploring campaign finance limits in the future, but she felt that the political-action committes and committees in the race were a bigger concern than individual donor limits.

“I think that transparency is what people are most concerned about,” Henjum said.

The only council race that has not seen significant fundraising in the filings so far has been District 6. None of the three candidates in that district have received more than $8,500 in contributions, although Parth Melpakam was endorsed by the Housing & Business Association, and its contribution may show up in the next round of filings.

There will be one more round of financial disclosure filings for the campaigns due on Friday, four days before the end of the election.

Johnson said the election has already seen more involvement by outside committees in the council races than during any of the previous City council elections she’d seen in Colorado Springs.

As of March 17, the biggest group listed in the city filings is the conservative American Jobs & Growth PAC, based in Alexandria, Va. Federal election filings show the PAC primarily spends on donations and messaging for congressional races across the country, including funds for Senate and House races in Nevada during the 2024 election.

American Jobs & Growth spent $17,200 this month on digital ads, text messages and mailers opposing Councilman Dave Donelson.

Donelson said he felt the actions by the PAC were in response to his votes against major developments and projects like the Ford Amphitheater.

“I think voters appreciate what I have done over the last four years. They know I am the councilman who has sided with citizen groups,” Donelson said.

The New Era Colorado Action Fund has provided more than $9,000 in local races. In February the group endorsed two young liberal candidates in the council races, Maryah Lauer in District 3 and Chauncy Johnson in District 4.

A pair of mysterious committees in the race are Protect Colorado Springs and the Colorado Springs Leadership Project. Both groups are registered to a Katie Kennedy based in Denver but have not stated in their filings how it is funded or how much money it has spent on the council races.

Protect Colorado Springs has been sending mailers attacking Gillit and set up websites opposing him and Henjum.