Campaign questions linger as Rick Nolte joins Polk County School Board

Rick Nolte will join the Polk County School Board on Tuesday with a cloud of uncertainty hovering over him.

Nolte, who ousted incumbent Sarah Fortney in the August election, is the subject of complaints that he violated state campaign-finance laws. The Florida Elections Commission, the agency that enforces the relevant laws, does not confirm investigations until after they are complete, and it is not known whether the commission is investigating Nolte.

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The complaints made by former School Board member Billy Townsend of Lakeland involve reported cash contributions to Nolte’s campaign that exceed the allowed maximum. In an official filing with the Polk County Supervisor of Elections, Nolte reported giving his own campaign a cash donation of $5,200 on March 10.

Under state law, cash contributions to candidates are limited to $50 per person in each election cycle. That limit applies to contributions from the candidate to the campaign.

Knowingly or willfully making or accepting a cash contribution that exceeds $5,000 is a third-degree felony, according to Florida statutes.

In another report covering Aug. 6 through Aug. 18, Nolte reported 10 contributions of $100 each from separate individuals. Each is described as “cash.” Under a state law, each contribution in that amount is a first-degree misdemeanor.

A review of Nolte’s campaign filings found that he also reported a single cash contribution of $100 in June.

Townsend filed an initial complaint with the Florida Elections Commission in late August over the reported contributions that exceed the limits for cash donations. Townsend, who publishes a newsletter on education and politics, filed an additional complaint with the FEC in late September over what he said are suspicious entries in Nolte’s campaign filings.

The candidate reported paying more than $2,700 in early June to Summit Printing in Kansas City, Missouri, with the purpose identified as “Shirts.” Townsend wrote that he contacted the owner of the company and received a voicemail from his saying that the company does not print shirts.

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A Ledger reporter called the company, and the employee who answered also said that Summit Printing does not produce shirts. When the reporter asked about Nolte’s order, the man said he could not discuss customers and ended the call.

Townsend’s second complaint cites a state law that defines knowingly filing a false campaign expense report as a first-degree misdemeanor.

Nolte has not spoken to any Ledger reporters since launching his campaign. A call to his cell phone was disconnected, and he did not reply to a text message or an email message sent Thursday. He declined to speak to a Ledger reporter who approached him at Tuesday’s School Board meeting in Bartow.

Nolte, a retired physical education teacher and owner of a golf club business, acknowledged an error in a letter sent to the Supervisor of Elections office and dated Aug. 26. The letter reads (in unedited form):

The letter did not mention Nolte’s self-reported cash contribution of $5,200. LkldNow quoted Nolte in a report from September as saying about the donation, “Yeah, it was a clerical error, I believe.”

The Supervisor of Elections Office is not responsible for enforcing state campaign laws.

In a document filed with the Supervisor of Elections last year, Nolte listed Dennis Elliott of Mulberry as his campaign treasurer. The Ledger received no response to a voicemail left on a number associated with Elliott.

Candidates have until Monday to submit termination reports to the Supervisor of Elections Office. As of Friday, the Polk County office said Nolte had not filed such a report.

Has the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit taken action?

Since submitting the complaints about Nolte, Townsend has publicly questioned why the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit have not taken action. Scott Wilder, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said that PCSO is not investigating Nolte and that state agencies enforce campaign-finance laws.

Townsend noted that the previous State Attorney, Jerry Hill, announced during a campaign in 2014 that his office was investigating a judicial candidate, Christine Thornhill. That prompted Thornhill to end her campaign four weeks before election day.

Hill’s office eventually dropped charges of falsely reporting campaign violations after Thornhill agreed to a series of pre-trial stipulations, The Ledger reported at the time.

Unlike Nolte, Thornhill faced allegations that she had violated campaign laws in a previous election as well as in the 2014 campaign. She was found to have received money from her parents well above contribution limits and deposited it into a personal account before shifting it to her campaign fund as a candidate contribution.

The State Attorney’s Office, now led by Brian Haas, has not publicly commented on whether it is investigating Nolte.

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Rick Nolte received an endorsement from DeSantis

Nolte was one of about 30 candidates in statewide school board races — and the only one in Polk County — to receive an endorsement from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Nolte signed a pledge to support DeSantis’ education agenda, which included such items as “educate, don’t indoctrinate,” rejecting Critical Race Theory and keeping “woke gender ideology” out of schools.

The Florida Legislature in this year’s session created the Office of Election Crimes and Security, a state agency overseen by the governor. The unit has issued warrants for highly publicized arrests of citizens who voted in recent elections despite having felony records and not ensuring that their rights had been restored, according to DeSantis’ office.

DeSantis’ office did not respond to a request for comment about Nolte sent Thursday morning.

Nolte, 66, received backing from the Polk County Republican Party in the nonpartisan election. He captured just under 51% of the vote to defeat Fortney, a former teacher who was seeking a second term.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Campaign questions linger as Nolte joins Polk County School Board