District employee withdraws candidacy because of law

A custodian at Washington Middle School filed Friday for the Brainerd School Board, only to withdraw his bid for a seat on the board today.

Mike Wisniewski, Brainerd, said he filed for a seat on the board after he researched whether as a school district employee he could run for school board. But it wasn't until he spoke Friday afternoon to Superintendent Jerry Walseth that he learned of a revised 1999 state statute that doesn't allow board members to earn more than $5,000 as an employee of the district.

Wisniewski, who moved to Brainerd from Chicago in 1997 and has worked for the school district since March 2002, makes $26,160 a year.

He said today it was unfeasible for him to quit his job to run for one of the three open seats on the board so he was forced to withdraw his name as a candidate.

"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to back out but maybe I'll give it a try another time," said Wisniewski. "I love what the school district is doing for the kids and I wanted to further the good program the school district has. I just wanted to be more active in the school district. I'll have to keep doing what I'm doing and make it a safe and healthy environment for the kids."

According to state statute, a school board member may be newly employed or may continue to be employed by a school district as an employee only if there is a reasonable expectation at the beginning of the fiscal year or at the time the contract is entered into or extended that the amount of money earned will not exceed $5,000 in that fiscal year.

School board filings remain open until 5 p.m. Sept. 9. The general election is Nov. 4. Filing last week for the school board were incumbent Ruth Gmeinder, Kent Montgomery, David Colvin, Cheryal Hills and Lois Hansen.

Board members whose four-year terms expire at the end of the year are Gmeinder, Randy Klinger and Janet Moran.

Residents who wish to vie for one of the seats on the board may file a $2 filing fee in the school district office at Mississippi Horizons.