A Wauwatosa resident has filed ethics complaints against three of the four candidates in the Wauwatosa School Board race running as the 2030 Slate.
Peter Baran said he filed individual complaints with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission on March 28 against Chris Merker, Heather Birk and Dan Stemper. Baran provided a reporter with copies of the complaints by email.
Wisconsin Ethics Commission administrator Daniel Carlson declined to confirm whether the complaint had been filed, saying that complaints are confidential.
Baran’s allegations
According to Baran, Merker’s campaign committee failed to properly report in-kind contributions made to and received from fellow slate candidate committees and made or received contributions exceeding statutory limits applicable to local candidate committees.
Baran accused Birk’s candidate committee of making contributions to a fellow slate candidate’s committee exceeding the statutory limit and of failing to properly report in-kind contributions made to and received from her fellow slate candidate committees.
Baran also accused Stemper’s candidate committee of failing to properly report in-kind contributions to three fellow slate candidates through jointly branded yard signs and a playbill advertisement and accepting contributions from fellow candidate committees exceeding state contribution limits.
No complaint had been filed against the fourth slate candidate, Todd Koehler, as of April 1.
State law limits the amount candidate committees for local offices can contribute, either $500 or an amount based on population, whichever is greater. For Wauwatosa, which had a population of 48,387 residents as of the 2020 census, the contribution limit is $967.74 per candidate committee, per election cycle.
The state ethics commission’s rules manual pertaining to local candidate committees says that when committees participate in joint advertising with other committees, there is an exchange of in-kind contributions between the committees. The committees are receiving something of value from the other committee in that they receive an ad’s full value but pay for only part of it. Each committee is required to report giving and receiving any in-kind contributions, the manual says.
If an ad is $500, for example, and two committees split the cost, each committee pays $250 to the vendor and each committee should report that $250 payment covering their half of the ad.
The complaint against Merker said Merker’s campaign committee paid $7,382.47 for “campaign mailer.” It also said Merker’s committee received cash transfers from all three fellow slate candidate committees and made cash transfers to those committees, but failed to properly characterize the transactions as in-kind contributions under state law.
Baran’s complaint said the postcards had all four candidates’ names on them and noted it was “Paid for by Friends of Chris Merker.”
The Birk complaint alleges Birk’s campaign made contributions to and received contributions from Stemper’s campaign that exceeded state limits, that she did not report reimbursement by Koehler or Merker’s campaigns for $1,444.30 she paid Vistaprint for door hangers featuring all four candidates and did not properly report her share of reimbursing Stemper for yard signs he bought featuring all four candidates. Baran also alleges Birk’s campaign committee reported only part of her share of the postcards featuring all four candidates that Merker’s campaign paid for.
The Stemper complaint said Stemper’s committee paid $12,224.74 for 310 four-candidate yard signs, which was not listed in his March campaign finance report, and that his committee accepted $7,389.94 in committee transfers from each of the other three committees, with every committee pair exceeding the statutory limit.
In addition, the complaint against Stemper’s campaign said each of the other three candidates’ share of the yard sign costs was not included on his report and exceeds the $967.74 limit. It also alleges that shares from the other three candidates of a $150 payment he made to Wauwatosa West Theatre for a half-page playbill featuring all four candidates were not reported.
Baran did not immediately respond to a reporter’s phone call or email message asking why he filed the complaint.
The candidates respond
Merker acknowledged that a complaint had been filed, but noted that no finding has been made and said shared campaign expenses are permissible under Wisconsin Ethics Commission guidance.
“We have taken compliance seriously, relied on Ethics Commission guidance, and will cooperate with any review. If any amendment is needed to ensure a filing is accurate, it will be made,” Merker said in an email to a reporter March 31.
Merker also said in a March 28 post on his campaign Facebook page, in part, that the slate paid only about $40 per sign and that each slate candidate split the cost and that after volume discounts, the final cost was about $9.50.
Birk did not respond to a reporter’s voicemails or email seeking comment.
However, in an addendum to her spring pre-election campaign finance report that she filed March 30 with the Wauwatosa School District, Birk said an individual contribution was made in excess of $967.74, which was caused by the fundraising platform she was using charging payment processing fees. She said that, as of March 30, the overage of $10.94 was refunded and the fundraising platform covered the processing fees for some donations. She said she contacted the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, and the commission was researching how to account for that.
Birk also said in her addendum that she was in contact with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission about appropriately documenting inter-campaign transactions.
“Due to the complexities of my campaign, I was advised to file what I have and send my financial information to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission for review and guidance. All updates and corrections will be reflected on an amended report and/or the July continuing report, as advised by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission,” she said.
Birk previously told the Journal Sentinel candidates often share resources, shared communications support and help collecting signatures. She said the difference is that their group is being transparent about it. She also previously said that each of their campaigns remain separate, responsible for their own fundraising, financials, social media and websites.
Stemper declined to speak on the record with a reporter when reached by phone.
Contact Alec Johnson at 262-875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ethics complaint filed against three Wauwatosa School Board candidates
Reporting by Alec Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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