Exclusive: Two Antigo School Board Members' Campaign Finance Reports Are 60 Days Overdue
Under Wisconsin law, two Antigo School Board members - Danny Pyeatt and Scot Peterson - were required to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign report with the school district before March 26th.
As of last Friday, two Antigo School Board members—Danny Pyeatt, who currently serves as president of the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, and Scot Peterson,1 a newly elected member of the Unified School District of Antigo School Board serving his first-term—are 60 days delinquent in filing a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, a review of the candidates’ respective campaign registration statements2 that were previously obtained by Wisconsin Jurisprudence shows, when coupled with the answers Wisconsin Jurisprudence recently received from Glenda Oginski, who serves as district administrator for the Unified School District of Antigo, in response to its multiple open records requests for the Antigo School Board members’ respective campaign finance reports filed in 2024.
Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s April 2024 Investigative Report: A Short Recap
Wisconsin campaign finance laws require a school board candidate to file campaign finance reports with the local filing officer—who “is the clerk for the office in most cases”—unless the candidate claims a valid statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their campaign registration statement.
However, nearly two months ago, on the morning of the 2024 spring election, Wisconsin Jurisprudence published an investigative report showing that three of the six candidates running for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board in the spring 2024 election—including Pyeatt and Peterson—did not claim a statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their respective campaign registration statements.
As a result, Wisconsin campaign finance laws required each of them to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board no later than eight days preceding the 2024 spring election—in other words, by no later than March 25th.
But in response to multiple open records requests by Wisconsin Jurisprudence before the 2024 spring election—including an open records request by Wisconsin Jurisprudence one day before the 2024 spring election—an employee with the Unified School District of Antigo said the school district did not have any campaign finance reports in its custody that were filed by the three candidates—including Pyeatt or Peterson—in 2024.
Before publishing its investigative report, Wisconsin Jurisprudence emailed each of the three candidates—including Pyeatt and Peterson—who had violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws in the lead-up to the 2024 spring election with a request to answer several questions. Wisconsin Jurisprudence also provided the three candidates with an opportunity to respond with a statement.
Although Pyeatt did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s email in time for publication of its April 2024 investigative report, Peterson did respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s email.
“I filed a form with the school district and did as the people at [the school district] central office instructed me to do,” Peterson wrote in April.
Peterson also wrote that he only “spent about $800 dollars” on his campaign for Antigo School Board, with “much of it [his] own personal money.”
Under Wisconsin campaign finance laws, a school board candidate whose aggregate campaign activity—that is, the sum of the candidate’s campaign contributions (both made by the candidate and received by the candidate), campaign expenditures, and loans incurred by the candidate’s campaign—does not exceed $2,500 in a calendar year may claim the statutory exemption to the reporting requirement at any time.
However, if the candidate does not claim the statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their campaign registration statement—including an amended campaign registration statement—then the candidate is “still subject to campaign finance reporting requirements,” according to an individual employed by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission who responded to a question from Wisconsin Jurisprudence last April.
After Wisconsin Jurisprudence published its investigative report on the morning of the 2024 spring election, Pyeatt was reelected as member of the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, and Peterson was elected to serve his first-term as a member of the Unified School District of Antigo School Board.
In the Aftermath of Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s April 2024 Investigative Report, the Antigo School Board (Unanimously) Reelects Pyeatt as its President
According to the Unified School District of Antigo School Board’s bylaws, all members of the school board are expected to “follow applicable local, State, and Federal laws and regulations.”
However, three weeks after Wisconsin Jurisprudence published its investigative report in early April, with the exception of Angela “Angi” Schreiber, who was not present at the school board meeting that took place on April 23rd, all members of the Unified School District of Antigo School Board—including the newly elected Peterson—unanimously reelected Pyeatt as its president, according to the minutes from the Unified School District of Antigo School Board meeting that took place on that date.
Nearly Two Months After Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s April 2024 Investigative Report, Pyeatt and Peterson Have Both Failed to File a 2024 Spring Pre-Election Campaign Finance Report with the Antigo School Board
In response to multiple open records requests by Wisconsin Jurisprudence—including one sent earlier this week—Unified School District of Antigo District Administrator Oginski said that, as of last Friday, the school district did not have any campaign finance reports in its custody that were filed by Pyeatt or Peterson in 2024.
As a result, as of last Friday, both Pyeatt and Peterson are 60 days delinquent in filing their respective 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance reports with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board.
Under Wisconsin campaign finance laws, a candidate who is required to file a campaign finance report with the relevant filing officer, but fails to do so, is subject to a $50 civil forfeiture, or one percent of the annual salary of the office for which the candidate seeks election, whichever is greater, for each day that the campaign finance report is filed late with the relevant filing officer.
Because Pyeatt and Peterson are 60 days delinquent in filing their respective 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance reports with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, each of them is, at a minimum, subject to a potential $3,000 civil forfeiture.
Wisconsin Jurisprudence emailed Peterson with a request to answer several questions for this article, including questions relating to his 60-day delinquency in filing a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board.
Peterson wrote that he “did not raise or spend more than $1,000” on his campaign for Antigo School Board.
“I was told if I did not raise more than $2,500, I just needed to file the paperwork provided by the school district,” wrote Peterson.
However, Peterson did not specify who said that to him—and Peterson did not respond to follow-up questions from Wisconsin Jurisprudence about his statement in time for publication of this article.
Wisconsin Jurisprudence also emailed Pyeatt with a request to answer several questions for this article, including questions relating to his 60-day delinquency in filing a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board.
However, Pyeatt did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s email in time for publication of this article.
When Asked by Wisconsin Jurisprudence About the Republican Party of Langlade County’s Past Endorsement of Pyeatt’s Candidacy for Antigo School Board, Langlade County GOP Chair Terry Brand Said, “Don’t Bother Me”
In the lead-up to the 2024 spring election, the Republican Party of Langlade County endorsed Pyeatt’s candidacy for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, according to an article published by Wisconsin Right Now on March 30th.
In response to an email from Wisconsin Jurisprudence, which requested the Republican Party of Langlade County to answer several questions for this article, including one regarding its past endorsement of Pyeatt’s candidacy for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board in the 2024 spring election, Terry Brand, the controversial handlebar mustached man who currently serves both as chair of the Langlade County GOP and as the mayor of the City of Antigo—and whom the Wisconsin Ethics Commission formally recommended that the Langlade County District Attorney bring criminal charges against after it determined in February 2024 that there was probable cause that Brand “intentionally” violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws3—wrote, “Don’t bother me any more [sic] for a comment.”
In the same matter allegedly involving Brand, the Wisconsin Ethics Commission also formally recommended that the Langlade County District Attorney bring criminal charges against the Republican Party of Langlade County itself in February 2024—based on the state ethics commission’s determination that there was probable cause that the Langlade County GOP intentionally violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws.
In a subsequent article published in late March 2024, Wisconsin Jurisprudence detailed how an investigation conducted by Wisconsin Jurisprudence raised substantial questions in a separate matter about whether the Republican Party of Langlade County may have violated Wisconsin campaign laws in the lead-up to the 2024 spring election of candidates running for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board.
However, the Republican Party of Langlade County did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s request to answer several questions in time for publication of its March 2024 investigative report.
The Democratic Party of Langlade County Did Not Respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s Question About its Past Endorsement of Peterson’s Candidacy for Antigo School Board
In the lead-up to the 2024 spring election, the Democratic Party of Langlade County endorsed Peterson’s candidacy for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, according to a publicly available post on its Facebook page.
Wisconsin Jurisprudence emailed the Democratic Party of Langlade County with a request to answer a question about its past endorsement of Peterson’s candidacy for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board in the 2024 spring election.
Although the Democratic Party of Langlade County made more than 20 posts on its Facebook page over Memorial Day weekend that are publicly available, it did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s email in time for publication of this article.
A correction was made on June 2, 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that three Antigo School Board candidates were required to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board by March 25th. The three Antigo School Board candidates were required to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board by no later than March 25th.
(Disclosure: I was a member of the Antigo High School football team when I attended Antigo High School from September 2004 until June 2008. During that time, Scot Peterson was one of my football coaches.)
In an effort to prevent the two Antigo School Board members who are 60 days delinquent in filing a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board from being doxxed as a result of the publication of this article, Wisconsin Jurisprudence has redacted non-relevant information contained in the two Antigo School Board members’ respective campaign registration statements.
The Antigo Daily Journal has previously reported that, in his capacity as chair of the Republican Party of Langlade County, Brand is alleged to have been involved “in a campaign finance fraud scheme.” Other media outlets have characterized the allegations against Brand, in his capacity as chair of the Langlade County GOP, as his being involved in illegal “money laundering.”