What did Feingold's PAC spend its money on?

At this point, I'm sure you've all heard of Progressives United, the political action committee Democratic Senate candidate Russ Feingold founded after he lost the 2010 election against Ron Johnson.

Feingold, a longtime campaign finance reform advocate, has come under fire from opponents for his "hypocrisy" after a news report earlier this summer found the PAC spent 5.5 percent of its money to directly support political candidates — $352,008 of the $6.3 million it spent.

Republicans have called the PAC  a "slush fund," buying billboard ads outside Lambeau Field in Green Bay with messages lambasting Feingold's PAC.

The PAC's mission includes not only financially supporting candidates, but offering indirect support by promoting candidates to supporters and advocating for items like net neutrality.

Feingold said in a statement that he was "proud of the work Progressives United did to build a grassroots organization" to advocate on issues like Social Security, net neutrality and corporate "greed."

Where did the other 95 percent of expenditures go then, if 5 percent went directly to candidates?

Gannett Wisconsin Media breaks down most of the expenses, available on the Federal Election Commission website, into five categories: fundraising, advocacy, travel, telecommunications and payroll expenses. Numbers are from Jan. 1, 2011, to June 30, 2015:

Fundraising: This is one of the largest categories of spending for the PAC, at $3.2 million. Marketing companies got the bulk of this money for items like direct mail and other marketing campaigns. The biggest spending on fundraising was from 2011 to 2012 with $1.9 million. From 2013 to 2014, the PAC spent $1.1 million and has spent $151,522 in 2015.

Advocacy: FEC filings don't have a category for advocacy, so there is no 100 percent certainty of what was advocacy versus fundraising or other expenditures. However, payments to companies like Trilogy Interactive, a web tool to track online advocacy actions like comments and petition signatures, took a chunk of the PAC's cash at $780,832 since 2011.

Travel: Progressives United spent over $36,000 on airfare, hotels, and food and drinks in 2011 and 2012. That number dropped more than 82 percent in 2013 and 2014, to just $6,224. Only $374 was spent so far in 2015, on a Hotwire.com flight.

This amounts to a total of $42,852 on travel expenses since January 2011.

Telecommunications: Verizon, AT&T, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Dish Network were all used by the PAC at different times from 2011 to 2015 for cable television, Internet or phone charges.

The total for telecommunications fees is $58,693. More than $43,000 was spent from 2011 to 2012.

Payroll expenses: The most talked about category used up $1.7 million of PAC money to pay for as many as 13 staffers, 401K contributions and payroll companies like Quickbooks Payroll.

Most, but not all, Progressives United staffers were former employees in Feingold's Senate office, like longtime chief of staff Mary Irvine, or worked on his Senate campaign, like staffer Cole Leystra, according to LinkedIn pages. Irvine made $186,797 over four years, while Leystra earned $153,550 from 2011 through June 2015.

In total, former Senate staffers earned $533,858, former campaign staffers earned $335,043, while other staffers earned more than $300,000.

Want to look at the filings for yourself? Head to the Federal Election Commission website and search for "Progressives United" in the committee/candidate search tool.

Madeleine Behr: 920-993-1000, ext. 7226, or madeleine.behr@gannettwisconsin.com; on Twitter @madeleinebehr