As the GOP's small donor activity ran into trouble last year, the party relied heavily on a handful of major donors to keep the state operations afloat, according to the party's 2011 state finance report released this week.

The report shows that nine donors, including the Prairie Island tribal PAC, gave $15,000 or more to the state party last year, which accounted for $509,000 of the $594,389 in contributions the party reported on its 2011 filing with the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

The largest donor was Robert Cummins, president of Primera Technology, who gave the party $280,000 to its state fund last year. The next highest giver was Bradley Rixmann, owner of Pawn of America, who gave $50,200 and retired Target CEO Robert Ulrich, who gave $45,000.

Other big donors included Best Buy Chairman Bradbury Anderson ($30,000), Hubbard Broadcasting Chairman Stanley Hubbard ($45,000) and Timothy Krieger, owner of Twin Cities Power, ($15,000).

The Prairie Island tribe gave $25,000 and the House Republican Campaign Committee gave $28,802.

The party said part of the money troubles that led to the recent $2 million hole in its budget were related to the loss of its small donor base that followed a change to state tax law in 2009 that eliminated matching refunds for small donors. Former State Party Chairman Tony Sutton in his resignation letter in December said that cost the party $3 million over the past two years.

In its explanatory note with its filing, the party said it has amended its 2009 and 2010 reports to reflect debts owed from those periods totaling $117,846. The party also said a prior error that should have shown a negative cash balance of $3,100 at the beginning of 2011 and it would be ammending its report to show a cash balance on hand of $19,581 at the end of 2011.