After four years, school district officials still don’t get it

Given four years of litigation over the St. Louis County School District’s improper use of taxpayer dollars for political purposes, one might have thought that school district officials would have learned something. But apparently being a large, unaccountable school district means top administrators never have to get it right, and never have to say they’re sorry when they make a hash of things.

The latest example hit area mailboxes a couple weeks ago, when district superintendent Steven Sallee launched a political broadside against citizens of the school district in the district’s taxpayer-funded newsletter. It was 100-percent political spin, filled with inaccuracies, half-truths and bogus allegations against Steve Abrahamson, Tim Kotzian, and me.

It was the same column that Sallee had submitted to the Tower News and Cook News-Herald, both published by district cheerleader Gary Albertson. It was the only mention of the school district’s latest legal fiasco, courtesy of the Office of Administrative Hearings, that’s ever made it into any of Albertson’s papers, and it kept his readers thoroughly in the dark about what actually happened.

The three of us who were singled out for Sallee’s barbs paid it little mind when it appeared in the two newspapers. As an individual, Mr. Sallee certainly has a right to engage in the political sphere, just as we do, and while submitting such a column is certainly unusual for an official in his position, it is well within the wide-open bounds of political debate.

The same cannot be said, however, of Mr. Sallee’s decision to publish the column in the district newsletter, which is a taxpayer-funded vehicle. School district funds do not belong to Mr. Sallee and expending such funds to air whatever grievances he might have against members of the public is an unauthorized, entirely inappropriate, and possibly illegal use of tax dollars.

While disputes over the improper use of taxpayer funds for political purposes are usually framed within the context of ballot measures, such as the school district’s 2009 bond referendum, the prospect that units of government would use taxpayer funds to wage political attacks on citizens who merely seek accountability for public wrongdoing is far more chilling.

Imagine if the mayor of a city were to use a city-funded publication to level attacks against some of the city’s own citizens for seeking redress over wrongdoing by the mayor.

Imagine if the state’s governor used public funds and resources to disseminate attacks on his political opponents. Such an official would rightfully be criticized, if not sued, for such an action.

The government isn’t supposed to use it’s typically overwhelming financial advantage to drown out, or attempt to discredit, legitimate dissent from the people. Mr. Sallee’s action was an ill-considered abuse of the school district newsletter.

The complainants in this case don’t dispute that publishing a school district newsletter is a valid use of district resources, but only if the publication is used to accurately inform residents of the district.

It was the dissemination of politically-motivated misinformation back in 2009 that got the school district in trouble in the first place. And Mr. Sallee’s column was more of the same, seriously misrepresenting the decision by the OAH in so many ways I won’t have space to highlight them all here. But Mr. Sallee failed to inform residents that the OAH had concurred with the vast majority of the complainant’s case, including that the district had failed to account for tens of thousands of dollars in spending that was clearly related to the campaign. Nor did he mention that complainants had repeatedly and specifically cited those same issues in communications to the district, or that they had given the district more than three months to amend their improper campaign finance report before reluctantly filing the complaint.

The issue presented Mr. Sallee with a golden opportunity to demonstrate leadership, by ensuring that the district complied with a previous OAH order to submit a compliant campaign finance report and by, for once, taking the concerns raised by the public seriously. Instead, he punted. Rather than reflect on his own role in yet another embarrassment for the district, he opted to unfairly attack the complainants.

Contrary to Mr. Sallee’s claims, the complainants in this cause of action have not “forced” the school district to expend $300,000 on litigation. The majority of the district’s legal costs related to this issue have been entirely discretionary. At every opportunity, complainants have urged school district officials to avoid litigation by simply acknowledging their errors. At every turn, it was the district that chose to spend public resources on meritless legal defenses.

Once the Minnesota Supreme Court, way back in 2012, determined that school districts were subject to campaign finance reporting if they spent taxpayer funds to wage a political campaign, it was game over for the school district. That they chose to expend hundreds of thousands of additional dollars on the interminable pursuit of a no-win case isn’t the fault of complainants. Stubborn school officials are responsible for that.

And while Mr. Sallee tries to paint the complainants as just a handful of cranks, reality is much different. From the beginning, complainants consistently argued that the school district promoted the 2009 referendum through a campaign of misinformation and failed to properly report its spending, as required. Two separate OAH panels sided fully with the complainants on both of those fundamental questions.

And this isn’t just a matter of a few individuals with an ax to grind. Back in January 2010, a total of 1,400 people in Tower-Soudan, Cook, and Orr signed a petition that asked the state auditor to look into these same questions. That’s more than half the population of these communities. When residents decided on legal action, more than 200 local residents contributed financially to help make it happen. Mr. Sallee can attack the named plaintiffs if he wants, but he’s really attacking the overwhelming majority of local residents in the northern half of the district, who remain upset to this day over what the school district did.

Mr. Sallee and others argue that it’s time to move on, even though he has a funny way of encouraging that. But I don’t disagree. I think it is time to move on— but I’ve told Mr. Sallee previously that forgiveness from residents isn’t likely to happen until the district is willing to acknowledge what it did, and apologize. It’s pretty difficult to forgive someone who is so unwilling to demonstrate the slightest contrition for wrongdoing, and who continues to use tax dollars to attack citizens who have cried foul.

The three of us whom Mr. Sallee chose to criticize with public funds have yet to decide how to ultimately respond. But we have, once again, offered the school district a just and very inexpensive alternative to something more onerous and costly. We have asked for equal time in the newsletter.

That’s a legal principle that’s very well established. One of the classic cases in this area of law, “Citizens to Protect Public Funds v. Board of Education of Parsippany-Troy Hills” (SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY, 13 N.J. 172; 98 A.2d 673), was written in the context of a school district newsletter that promoted passage of a bond referendum, but the principles apply universally. In it, the high court opines: “The public funds entrusted to the board belong equally to the proponents and opponents (emphasis ours) of the proposition, and the use of the funds to finance not the presentation of facts merely but also arguments to persuade the voters that only one side has merit, gives the dissenters just cause for complaint.”

As the dissenters in this instance, we, indeed, have cause for complaint. If the school district chooses to use its newsletter as a political forum, it can’t just be a one-sided megaphone for the superintendent to blast his critics. It must be open, as well, to those on the receiving end of the superintendent’s criticisms.

We’ve made our request for equal time to the school board. At least one board member, Nancy Wall Glowaski, has been willing to argue for fairness. It’s been nothing but silence from the rest of them.