Members Of Mercer School Board Charged With Misconduct

Several current and former members of one northern Wisconsin school board have been charged with misconduct in office or falsely acting as a public official.

The charges stem from destruction of a public record and two individuals falsely claiming to be members of the Mercer School Board.

Criminal complaints filed Friday in Iron County Circuit Court say the Mercer School Board sent a letter to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction last May to explain questions that came up from an audit by DPI.

DPI clawed back around $175,000 from the district last year for inappropriately spending money from its “Fund 80” account that reserves money for community programs and services, according to a DPI letter dated June 26, posted on the blog Mercer School Facts. The agency found the fund was used without proper documentation to increase wages and benefits for a few district employees, including district administrator Erik Torkelson.

Deanna Pierpont, Denise Thompson, Michele “Micki” Holmstrom, Colleen “Kelly” Kohegyi, and Noel Brandt all signed a May 1 letter providing details on how money was spent from the fund, according to the complaints.

But, there was a problem, said Iron County District Attorney Matthew Tingstad: “There was two that weren’t school members that were appearing as if they were school board members.”

Two of the five, Thompson and Kohegyi, were not school board members at the time of the letter. The complaint details Kohegyi had been defeated in an election a month before and Thompson hadn’t served on the board since 2016.

Christa Reinert, a current school board member who defeated Thompson in 2016, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last year she encountered pushback from board members when she started asking questions about how the district was spending money.

Numerous attempts to reach Reinert were unsuccessful.

“The other three that were school board members, held a meeting, submitting this letter, knowing that it wasn’t the school board — that there were two individuals on there that weren’t part of the school board,” Tingstad said.

Pierpont, Holmstrom and Brandt are charged with felony misconduct in office, and Thompson and Kohegyi are charged with felony falsely exercising a role of public office.

Tingstad said the five are facing felony charges that could bring up to a $10,000 fine or three years in prison.

In addition, former school board president Deanna Pierpont is facing an additional misconduct charge after telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she erased a video of a school board meeting.

“These are school board members that are not acting as they should under state law,” Tingstad said. “It appears that they’re doing what they want to do with the school board and (they’re) not committed to following any kind of laws here as far as they should be following.”

A DPI spokeswoman wrote in an email Monday the agency is in ongoing discussions with Mercer to resolve an issue with the district’s misuse of its account for community programs. She said DPI is unaware of any criminal activity in connection with that issue.

Pierpont, Holmstrom and Brandt are still serving on the school board.

Attempts to reach four of the five individuals charged and district administrator Erik Torkelson were unsuccessful Monday. Kohegyi declined to comment.