Milwaukee teachers’ union accuses recall collaborative of campaign violations

(The Center Square) – There is now an ethics complaint to go along with the effort to recall four members of Milwaukee’s school board.

The Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association said it filed an ethics complaint against the Milwaukee Public School School Board Recall Collaborative.

“The people of Milwaukee deserve clean, transparent elections so they know who is funding the candidates and initiatives seeking their vote. That’s why we have campaign finance and ethics laws,” MTEA President Ingrid Walker-Henry said in a statement. “The Wisconsin Ethics Commission should act swiftly to investigate these likely violations of the law and of the community’s trust.”

The complaint comes after Recall Collaborative leaders held a news conference last week where they talked about “anonymous donors” who are helping to pay for the recall effort.

Those donors, and just what they have paid for, are not included in the Recall Collaborative's latest campaign finance report.

“It is unfathomable that a group of individuals operating a campaign to replace four democratically elected school board members would so brazenly violate campaign finance law. For a group who claims to be upset by a lack of transparency, running a secretive campaign funded by anonymous donors is the peak of hypocrisy,” Walker-Henry added.

The campaign report for the Collaborative shows the group raising and spending just $278.

Organizer Nicole Johnson said the Collaborative itself has not paid anyone, and claims they are just petitioners.

There are reports the Collaborative’s anonymous donor is paying people to collect signatures.

As of last week, the Collaborative claimed to have collected 37,000 signatures. They will need to collect more than 63,000 valid signatures and get them to election managers by Aug. 12.

The Recall Collaborative is targeting MPS School Board president Marva Herndon, Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi, as well as members Erika Siemsen and Missy Zombor.

Recall organizers blame all four for Milwaukee Public Schools’ financial failures and for sticking with former Superintendent Keith Posley.