BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – Despite raising a record $50.3 million, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign was in debt when Dean withdrew from the race.

“We do have a debt, but it’s not unmanageable,” campaign manager Roy Neel said Friday. “It will be paid off pretty quickly. I don’t know of a major campaign that does not end with a debt of some kind.”

Neel said he did not know how much the campaign was in debt, but said it will probably exceed $500,000 once expenses for shutting down the campaign are known.

Neel said the campaign may try to raise money over the Internet to help retire the debt. He said a “bat” might be put up on the campaign’s Dean for America web site. The campaign has periodically posted a bat icon, asking supporters to “hit a homer for Howard” by sending in money to finance the campaign. The most recent bat raised $1.4 million to finance the campaign’s Wisconsin effort.

Dean, once regarded as the Democratic front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination, withdrew from the race Wednesday after a disappointing third-place finish in Wisconsin.

Dean said at the time that he hopes to convert his campaign into an ongoing grassroots Democratic group advocating change, but Neel said the details of such an organization won’t be known for weeks.

The campaign’s grassroots and Internet skills enabled it to attract 800,000 active supporters, and small-donor contributions from 318,880 people, according to statistics released by the campaign Wednesday.

Friday, 50 staffers completed their last day of work for the campaign. Neel said a skeleton crew will stay to close the books on the campaign operation while Dean decides how to reshape the operation to fit its new role.

“Everyone who is leaving will have been paid for every day they worked,” Neel said. “We will not do what other campaigns have done, which is to ask staff to forgo payment they deserve.”

AP-ES-02-21-04 1119EST