Late last week a Dane County Judge ordered the release of an internal complaint from the Madison Metro School District alleging bullying behavior from the district’s communications director Tim LeMonds.
The complaint was submitted by three employees of the district’s communications department, and alleges that LeMonds had a long history of bullying and harassing employees, along with a low regard for local media.
District officials investigated the allegations, and found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing by LeMonds.
The complaint was originally part of an open record request from NBC 15 reporter Elizabeth Wadas in December of last year, asking for any emails sent or received by any school district employee containing either Wadas’ name or the name of the station.
When the district moved to release the complaint as part of that request, LeMonds sued the district to keep it from being released. His legal team claimed the release of the records would result in unwarranted, unfair and irreversible public ridicule and gossip, negative public perception, and jeopardize his ability to credibly perform his duties.
LeMonds spoke with me yesterday about the release of the records.
“Even though this complaint was found without merit after a thorough investigation, I think 11 people were interviewed and everything was found false, even then I knew that the release of this information would still be out there, would still be damaging because people are going to read it and they’re going to believe what they want to believe,” LeMonds says. “I’m already seeing that after the fact. There are individuals and reports who are just choosing to ignore the fact that this complaint was found without merit.”
Tim LeMonds adds that those comments represent himself, and not MMSD. He declined to comment on the substance of the complaint.
In her ruling Dane County Judge Rhonda Lanford found that LeMonds did not adequately show that protecting his reputation was as important as the public’s right to know about the complaint, and ordered it released immediately.
Tom Kamenick is the president of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, a law firm dedicated to enforcing open records. He says that, while LeMonds was within his full legal rights to try and stop the complaint from getting out, Judge Lanford came to the only correct decision.
“I think there’s a really strong, important public interest in learning about these complaints that are filed against a government employee, even when they are found to be unsubstantiated and no disciplinary action is taken,” Kamenick says. “The government employer cannot be trusted 100% to do their own investigation, the investigatory process itself needs public accountability and supervision.”
LeMonds says that he knew that his attempt to block the complaint’s release was a long shot.
“It didn’t surprise me that that was the decision, it was the safe decision,” LeMonds says. “The school district was following the law to the letter, and I was exercising my legal right. The judge I believe came to a decision that she believed in, and (while) we wish it would have been different, it is what it is.”
The ten-page complaint was first submitted in October of last year, and outlines a years-long history of bullying and harassment against both workers in the communications department and the press.
In one incident in August, LeMonds is alleged to have screamed at an employee for allowing two people under her to take a day off, one for a funeral and the other to help his son move. LeMonds allegedly said that nobody should have been taking a day off the month before school started, though he did allow another communications employee to take a 3-day vacation during the work week that same week.
The complaint also alleges that LeMonds repeatedly lied to an employee about getting a raise. The complaint says that LeMonds told an employee that she would be getting a raise to match current market rates in February of last year. But when that raise never came, the employee reached out to the district’s HR in May, who told her that they have no record of LeMonds asking to get her a raise. When LeMonds was made aware that the employee reached out to HR directly, he then texted another employee that he was quote “surprised and frankly disturbed” end quote, that she would go directly to HR.
One continuing theme of the complaint was the constant restructuring of the communications department, leaving people unsure who was considered their boss, and who they were supposed to be supervising.
The complaint also alleges that several people who left the communications department named LeMonds as a direct reason for leaving. According to the complaint, one former employee said quote “white male toxicity was ruling unchecked and it was time to get out of a toxic and abusive work environment.”
Another said quote “he was immediately sexist and belittling to all the women in the department, demonstrating how little he cared about our opinions and how little he valued our work or contributions.”
The complaint also outlined a history of LeMonds’ hostility toward members of the media. Allegations ranged from ignoring press requests, to yelling at reporters over the phone, and even calling a reporter off hours to quote “scream and yell about how terrible of a journalist she was,” end quote.
NBC 15 reporter Elizabeth Wadas is named in the complaint, which is why it was included in the open records request. There, employees allege that LeMonds called Wadas a “pig of a journalist,” and that she was “quickly becoming the sleaziest journalist in Madison.”
NBC 15 General Manager and Regional Vice President Don Vesely told WORT that they went to court to fight for the public’s right to know, and were pleased to see the records released in full.
Another local journalist mentioned in the complaint was Beth Beyer, a former education reporter with the Wisconsin State Journal. Beyer told WORT that, when she first began covering the district in 2020, she had a positive relationship with LeMonds. But in the summer of 2021, she says that something flipped when he became quote “not so nice.” She says that she began receiving a series of calls from LeMonds, where he would yell at Beyer for doing her job.
The complaint alleges that, in August of last year, LeMonds told another employee that he quote “f-ing hates Beth Beyer.”
The complaint also alleges that LeMonds claimed to get her fired from the State Journal, telling the department quote “I basically told her editors we want her removed,” end quote. During that same meeting LeMonds allegedly asked the entire communications department to go around the room and say all the negative interactions they had with Beyer.
While Beyer did leave the State Journal last year, she says that she was not, in fact, fired, and instead gave ample notice that she had accepted a fellowship in Washington DC.
The complaint says that LeMonds said when she left that quote “the new person, also a woman, isn’t any better,” end quote.
An investigation into the complaint found that there was insufficient evidence that LeMonds had done anything wrong, and he says that the complaint doesn’t show the full story.
“There is a lot in that complaint,” LeMonds says. “There is a lot of context that isn’t in there, and many of these individuals, if not all of them, were impacted by a reorganization of that department within the first year of me working here. It did have an impact on people, but it was something that needed to be done. We’ve since eliminated some positions, and we are running leaner and meaner, but we are also (making) decisions in the best interest of the school district, and (to be) good stewards to the taxpayers.”
LeMonds is one of many to sue the district over records in recent memory. Over the past two years, the district has been sued at least six times over records requests, usually over how long it takes for those records to be released.
Tom Kamenick is currently representing the conservative law firm the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty , or WILL in one of those lawsuits.
“In my experience, MMSD is one of the worst offenders in the state, especially when it comes to delays,” Kamenick says. “They’ve been sued multiple times for not releasing records in a timely manner, they are taking over a year to respond to many record requests. They were called out by the media on several occasions for those delays, and did not seem to be improving their practices in any meaningful way.”
Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a government transparency watchdog group, awarded the school district their No Friend of Openness award, naming the district as one of the worst public institutions in the state for public records and accountability. In a press release announcing the award, LeMonds is directly named in relation to the many lawsuits alleging violations of open records laws.
Members of the MMSD School Board did not respond to a request for comment. In a public statement, the district said, quote “it is abundantly clear that there are relational problems within the district’s communications department that need to be addressed,” end quote. They say that they will conduct a full review of the department operations, structure, and human interactions in the coming months, and that they stand by the judge’s ruling to release the complaint.
In the meantime, the district says that they will continue to be fully focused on MMSD students for the last two weeks of the school year.
Photo courtesy: Chali Pittman / WORT Flickr