Tom Nelson participates in a televised Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senate debate, Sunday, July 17, 2022, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Wisconsin’s spring primary is only a week away.
In Outagamie County, residents will get to vote for a justice for the supreme court, and also a county executive.
An anonymous group called “Fact Check the Exec” submitted a public records request relating to the job performance of current Outagamie County Executive, Tom Nelson.
The anonymous group says voters deserve to have an accurate assessment of the incumbent’s job performance, prompting the open records request.
“I guess I will respect their wishes to be anonymous and not speculate,” said Outagamie County executive, Tom Nelson.
According to open records requested by “Fact Check the Exec”, Nelson was only in the office for a total of 2.5 hours in January 2022.
Nelson was asked if county executives are required to work the standard 40 hours per week;
“Well look, the county is my office and in fact sometimes when I work from home, there’s some advantages with that because I’m more centrally located in the county,” said Nelson. “I’m closer to some of the outlerlying departments, and those departments are just as important as everything we do downtown.”
The records show no documentation of the Executive accessing the county’s network at home during 2022.
Nelson explained why that is.
“Well, I’ve got my phone, and so smartphones can do a lot of things, whether they need me to call or email or anything like that,” said Nelson. “I can do all those tasks and all that work.”
Records from January 31 say Nelson completed none of the required IT Security Training sessions that every other county employee is required to complete. But he defended himself saying those are now done.
“I did miss the last couple so I appreciate the notice and so I completed that,” said Nelson. “Of course when it comes to IT training and security it’s very important, we take that very serious.”
The anonymous group provided a statement saying, “Outagamie County taxpayers deserve a County Executive who is willing to invest the time, energy and interest required to successfully lead a large and complex organization charged with delivering critical public services. Instead, Tom Nelson has used this office only as a platform to run for higher office.”
“We’ve had a declining tax rate for eight years in a row, we fully fund all our services, just down the road from here, we have an airport that contributes $700 million worth of economic activity, supporting almost 3,000 jobs,” said Nelson. “Folks want results and that’s what I’ve been doing the last 12 years.”
Justin Kreuger and Kevin Sturn are the candidates running against Nelson for county executive.
Both say they have no involvement regarding the open records request.
Wisconsin’s spring primary will be held Tuesday, February 21.
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