Bennett still in U.S. Senate 'millionaires club'
The Utah Republican's net worth is between $2.5 million and $8 million, based on the total of his assets, liabilities and additional salary beyond his Senate paycheck.
Senators are only required to check off boxes indicating wide financial ranges in the questionnaire, which makes it difficult to pinpoint values. Bennett's spokeswoman, Mary Jane Collipriest, said the value of his assets depends on the market, making an exact net worth hard to calculate. But she said his net worth was closer to the $2.5 million end of the range.
Bennett's largest assets are between $5 million and $25 million receivable from Watermark Properties, LLC, as well as his ownership of two Anniversary Inn locations in Salt Lake City. The report lists the Anniversary Inn Salt City Jail and The Anniversary Inn South Temple, each with a value of $1 million to $5 million. But Bennett also owes between $1 million and $5 million on the Salt City Jail location and $5 million to $25 million for the South Temple one, according to the report.
The senator did sell a rental property in Salt Lake City valued from $500,000 to $1 million in September.
He also made between $48,723 and $249,962 on top of his $165,200 Senate salary through dividends on stock holdings in Dow Chemical, Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Johnson and Johnson and others, as well as interest on bank accounts.
His publicly traded assets range from $446,025 to $1.3 million and his private assets range from $7,750,006 to $36,505,005, according to the report.
The Ethics in Government Act requires lawmakers to list their financial holdings annually. The forms were officially due May 15, but Bennett filed for an extension. His office made his filing available to the Deseret Morning News on Thursday.
Bennett came into the Senate in 1992 with one of the highest levels of personal wealth in Congress. He estimated his net worth at $30 million when he was elected mainly based on investments in the Franklin time-planner company now known as FranklinCovey. He was once the company president, but Senate ethics rules barred him from leading Franklin while in the Senate.
He invested his wealth in other startup companies, hoping one of them would become another Franklin, but nothing ever took off and he lost heavily, according to previous reports.
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
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