TOP NEWS STORIES OF 2015
DA FINDS SCHOOL BOARD VIOLATED OPEN MEETINGS,
PUBLIC RECORDS LAWS
Citing violations of Wisconsin’s open
meetings and public records laws, the Mercer School Board was put on notice
Wednesday night by Iron County District Attorney Marty Lipske that he will
monitor the board’s actions over the next year for compliance with the laws.
Lipske earlier had made a determination
that the board held an illegal closed-door session on October 28, 2013, and
asked for Wednesday night’s “pre-charging conference” with board members. At
that meeting he said he was convinced that the school district had also
violated the public records law by not providing a Mercer resident with legally
requested records.
Wednesday night’s action was not the first
time the school district was cited for violating Wisconsin’s laws. In
September, 2014, Iron County Circuit Judge Pat Madden found School District
Administrator Erik Torkelson and the district guilty of violating the public
records law by not turning over an alleged email message which was part of a
faked hacking scheme intended to intimidate the author of a blogsite critical
of Torkelson and the school board for misrepresenting a school tax increase
referendum. Judge Madden ordered Torkelson and the district to pay a fine
and legal fees of about $5,000. (MSF May 28, Mar. 8, Feb. 11, 2015)
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Torkelson and the School Board
A LESSON IN ARROGANCE -- AND DEFIANCE OF
THE LAW
You would think that being found guilty of violating the law and being
ordered to pay a penalty and legal costs of more than $5,000 would teach
someone a lesson. But, this apparently is not case with District Administrator
Erik Torkelson and the Mercer School Board. Besides, the $5,000 didn’t come out
of their pockets. You, as taxpayers, footed the bill.
Now another perfectly legitimate request for school documents, which anyone
is entitled to under Wisconsin’s public records law, has again been virtually
ignored.
Just this past December, each school employee received a Christmas bonus of
$500, for a total of $13,500 paid out in bonuses. In addition, $6,800 of
taxpayer dollars was used to pay employees of a local business which has
absolutely no connection to the school. A Mercer resident made the request for
information about the two handouts to Torkelson, School Board President Deanna
Pierpont and Lori Boltz, the district‘s business manager, and received two
meaningless pieces of paper in return. (Apr. 24, 2015)
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Is This a
Belated Christmas “Present” for Mercer Taxpayers?
Just when we thought that the office Christmas party and
Christmas bonuses were things of the past, Administrator Erik Torkelson and the
Mercer School appear to have brought them back. At least that is what
mercerschoolfacts has been told. Our sources said that Torkelson and the Board
doled out $500 bonuses to school district employees. Since there are
approximately 27 employees, that would be a cost of $13,500 of taxpayer
dollars. In addition, the Board threw a Christmas party bash at a local bar and
restaurant, probably also at taxpayer expense.
In criticizing these acts, several Mercer residents felt that, if true, it
would not have been so bad had not Torkelson and School Board just recently
refused to provide free and nutritious breakfasts, lunches and milk to 50
students thereby providing relief to needy young families. The free student
meals would cost the district about $20,000 a year. These students do not now
qualify for free or reduced-priced meals under federal and state subsidized
programs but they are worthy of assistance. (Jan.17, 2015)
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The $190,000 Lie, or:
HOW TO DECEIVE AN ALREADY DECEPTIVE SCHOOL BOARD
Mercer School District Administrator Erik Torkelson is either education’s worst
researcher or its best disseminator of misinformation.
Again at the January 26 School Board meeting he pretended to know the facts and
repeated totally erroneous information about why the School District could not
provide free, nutritious breakfasts, lunches and milk for the 50 students not
now receiving them under government funded meals programs.
At the meeting he told the School Board, which he controls, what it wanted to
hear after backing him in refusing to provide the meals for the 50 deserving
students which would help young families. The School District would lose
about $143,000 of state and federal money, Torkelson said.
ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE, according to two officials of the Wisconsin Department of
Public Instruction that oversees the government financed meals programs. The
school CAN pay for those meals out of its general fund without losing any state
or federal money, according to Karrie Isaacson, a DPI school nutrition team
director, and Deb Wollin, a nutrition program consultant. (MSF March 14, 2015)
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And Now for the Rest of the Story…
This year’s Mercer School District’s annual meeting was probably
more interesting for what didn’t happen than what did happen. Among
the “didn’t happen” items was consideration of free lunches, breakfasts and
milk for about 50 deserving students not now receiving them under state and
federal subsidized meals programs.
Wisconsin Statute 120.10, Powers of the Annual Meeting, requires
that school lunches be included in the agenda of the school district’s annual
meeting.
(16) SCHOOL LUNCHES -- Direct the school board to furnish school
lunches to the pupils of the school district and appropriate funds for that
purpose.
The Statute list 21 items which must be included in the annual
meeting agenda. However, School District Administrator Erik Torkelson and
his School Board “cherry picked” only seven items that it would allow Mercer
residents to discuss and vote on at the annual meeting. (Nov.6, 2015)
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REINING IN ROGUE SCHOOL BOARDS
Mercer taxpayers painfully remember the 37.1% school tax
increase that was deceptively snuck past them in February, 2013. The tax
increase referendum was deliberately scheduled by the Mercer school board and
Administrator Erik Torkelson for a time, outside of the regular spring and fall
election cycle, when it is known that few people turn out to vote. School
boards have found it easy to pressure and influence this small number of voters
-- parents, teachers and uninformed residents -- by telling them that if they
don’t vote for the tax increase classes will be cut, extra-curricular
activities discontinued and the school possibly closed. (Sound familiar?)
Now a bill has been introduced in the Wisconsin Assembly which
will prohibit such dishonest and deceptive school board practices. The
bill will require that tax increase referendums be held only during regular
spring and fall elections when interest and turnout is greatest. Also, if
a referendum fails it cannot be reintroduced for two years. School boards
have been known to immediately come back again and again, wearing down the
opposition.
We only wish that the proposed law would also require that any such
referendum limit the number of years for a tax increase. The Mercer tax
increase, approved unknowingly by voters, is FOREVER.
State Senator Frank Lasee (1st District) explains in
the following why it is important to have this law. Uninformed opponents
say it will take away local control. Actually it will give control to the
taxpayers to rein in corrupt and rogue school boards and administrators. (MSF
Dec. 16, 2015)
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MORE OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS WASTED
If you had more than $1 million sitting idly in the bank and wanted to buy
something for $300,000 would you take out a loan that would cost you $126,671
in finance charges?
It doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to know that would be the dumbest thing you
could do. And, it certainly indicates a total lack of fiscal
responsibility and accountability.
However, that’s exactly what the Mercer School Board and District
Administrator Erik Torkelson have decided to do. Mercer taxpayers will be
saddled for 20 years with a $300,000 loan that will cost them $126,671 in
interest expense. Of course, it won’t cost Torkelson anything because he
doesn’t live or pay taxes in Mercer. (MSF June 5, 2015)
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WAS IT GREED OR
STUPITITY OR BOTH?
With $1.5 million sitting idly in the bank -- our money which was collected
as school taxes but for which there are no spending plans -- the Mercer School
Board and its Administrator Erik Torkelson had the audacity to ask the Mercer
Education Foundation to pay for new lockers “and other things” for the school.
However, Foundation Board of Directors members astutely said that using
Foundation funds for that reason would not conform to the Foundation’s mission.
(MSF July 17, 2015
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We are constantly being warned about scamming schemes: the door-to-door
repairman offering to provide work on your home, or the middle-of-the-night
phone call from a grandson who is in trouble and needs money from you.
But, in our midst is a “scam” which hasn’t received much
notoriety. It’s the governmental taxing body which takes money from you
for one purpose and then turns around and uses it for another. Or, it
simply takes the money and puts it in the bank and you never see it again. And,
it makes it almost impossible to find out where the money is really going.
The scheme can begin with telling you that the governmental body
is in serious financial straits and needs more cash. Then it gets you to
approve a referendum by telling you one thing which ends up being quite
another. Like saying that the referendum will only cost you a mere amount
but actually ends up costing you much, much more. (MSF Sept. 25, 2015)
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