Support the Timberjay by making a donation.

Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Report: District spent $66,819 on 2009 campaign

Tom Klein
Posted 8/27/15

REGIONAL – Bowing to a ruling by the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings, the St. Louis County School District has submitted a revised campaign finance report.

The amended report shows …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Report: District spent $66,819 on 2009 campaign

Posted

REGIONAL – Bowing to a ruling by the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings, the St. Louis County School District has submitted a revised campaign finance report.

The amended report shows the district spent $66,819 on its campaign for the passage of a $78.8 million bond proposal to fund the remodeling and construction of schools. The biggest share of those expenses was $58,000 paid to Johnson Controls Inc. for communication services on the referendum. Other components included $7,800 to the Cook News Herald for district newsletters that were deemed promotional for the bond proposal’s passage and $1,018 to Greenfield Communications for services.

The district had previously claimed campaign expenses totaling $12,561. Steve Abrahamason and Tim Kotzian, who had filed the original case against the district, initially urged district officials to amend the report to include the full amount of its campaign spending, but the district refused, which prompted the filing of the most recent complaint.

The OAH’s three-judge panel agreed with the complainants that the district had filed an incomplete report. The panel ordered a new report be filed by Aug. 15 and fined the district $200. The district agreed to abide by the ruling.

“We’re pleased that the school district has provided the full disclosure we’ve been seeking from the beginning,” said Timberjay Publisher Marshall Helmberger, who assisted the complainants with the suit. “This is pretty much the number we expected based on the OAH ruling in the case.”

The panel ruled that some of the services provided by Johnson Controls Inc. at a discount to the district did not have to be reported. Complainants have challenged that aspect of the ruling in an appeal.

“We think this opens up a huge loophole in the campaign finance law, which we’re confident the Court of Appeals will fix,” said Helmberger. “We wouldn’t have appealed the issue by itself, but given the OAH’s refusal to rule on the broader question of whether school districts can promote, we felt an appeal was necessary to finally resolve all the outstanding issues raised in this case.”

Helmberger said the issue of whether districts can use public dollars to promote a ballot question is critical.

The issue has been in legal limbo since the State Auditor’s Office suggested it was okay for districts to campaign provided they filed a campaign finance report. That interpretation by the office contradicts a prior opinion issued by Minnesota’s attorney general that prohibited the use of tax dollars to promote a ballot question.

“While the district has now come forward in disclosing its campaign spending, the public still has to be concerned that $66,000 of our tax money was spent promoting a “yes” vote in 2009 by spreading inaccurate and misleading information to voters,” concluded Helmberger. “We’re hopeful that the Court of Appeals will finally resolve the legality of using public dollars to advocate for ballot measures and they’ll make it clear that school districts can’t do this in the future.”