Veterans service investigation continues

Criminal investigation into benefit specialist ends with no charges

An outside attorney hired by the county’s insurance company is continuing to review the circumstances around the exit of veterans benefit specialist Nikki Sherman.

Sherman resigned suddenly on May 22, publicly releasing a letter at the time to members of the veterans community and local media. In that letter, Sherman referenced past actions of county leadership to dealings with the office which led up to the resignation last summer of former county veterans service officer Shellie Shaw, and was cited by previous veterans service officer Dan Judnic in his surprise resignation earlier this year after serving only a few months in the position. The email also includes information about what she described as being the “last straw” regarding actions taken while Sherman was using earned benefit time in the weeks prior to her resignation. Sherman had been out of the office since May 8 using her earned leave time.

On Monday, county corporation counsel Courtney Graff gave an update to See VETERANS on page 12 members of the county’s veteran’s service committee about Sherman’s exit. This was the first meeting of the committee since June 2 when the committee had met in closed session with attorney Graff to “confer with legal counsel who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved. (Topic: personnel change; claims filed against the county).”

According to Graff, following Sherman’s leaving county employment and concerns over the condition of the office and files being destroyed, the decision was made to contact the county’s insurance provider to start a claim as a way to mitigate risk to the county. As with last summer’s resignation of former veterans service officer Shellie Shaw, the insurance company hired an outside attorney to look at circumstances regarding Sherman leaving and to determine potential liability.

At Monday’s meeting, Graff went on to state that a complaint was filed with the Taylor County Sheriff’s Department by an individual asking the sheriff to do an investigation and look into possible criminal activity having occurred.

Graff said the sheriff looked into the concern and concluded that there was not enough to take additional action going forward on if a crime occurred.

Graff declined at the meeting to go into details of the sheriff’s investigation referring questions to Sheriff Larry Woebbeking. She stated she thought Woebbeking was going to be at Monday’s meeting to speak to his own report, but Woebbeking was not able to be there.

“What about the three bags of shredded material,” asked committee member Larry Peterson.

Graff replied that was part of the sheriff’s investigation. She said the investigation was requested and that the county has been “hands off” in Woebbeking reaching his conclusions. (See sidebar for the details of Woebbeking’s investigation.)

Committee members asked about the timeline for getting a report from the insurance company’s attorney.

“We don’t have a timeline right now,” she said, noting their first priority was to mitigate risk and to make sure that county citizens were not harmed by the action taken.

Citizen concerns

During the public participation portion of the meeting, the floor was opened for members of the area veterans community to voice concern and to give feedback to the committee.

Medford VFW post commander Bill Vach raised concern about getting a phone call from Eric Decker asking him if the VFW was supporting the recall efforts underway against current veterans committee chair Catherine Lemke.

“I assume he was directed to call by his significant other Rachel Ogle,” Vach said. Ogle works in the county’s human resource department.

Vach stated that the VFW is not a political organization and said they do not support anything like this.

“The county came after the previous CVSO and I have suspicion they are coming after the veterans organizations,” Vach said.

Decker currently serves as vice commander of the Medford VFW post and is a past post commander. He was on annual training with the National Guard returning on Aug. 8 and learned about the recall efforts at that time.

Vach said Taylor County rated about 70th out of counties in the state and said the county government was trying to “dig themselves a little deeper.”

Vach also called for a personal apology from county clerk Andria Farrand, county board chairman Jim Metz and human resources director Nicole Hager for a police report he said was filed saying he was a danger to the county by walking up and down the halls in the courthouse on Feb. 17.

Veteran Randy Pawlowicz thanked committee members for hearing from them. He said while he looked forward to working with veterans service officer Shelia Wundrow in future matters, in the past several months, he has been working with the Price County office because he felt Taylor County wasn’t being represented very well. He also said he also worked with Barron County’s veterans service office.

He noted that those counties have tight budgets too and are there to help their own county’s veterans. “We were kind of let down in Taylor County. I hope it gets better,” he said.

Veteran Susan Gregori, asked about the status of the veterans outreach program that had typically been held in late summer. She noted that it has not been held for two years now.

In 2022, the decision to cancel outreach day was made by then-veterans service office Shellie Shaw prior to her

See SERVICE OFFICER on page 13 resignation. Wundrow said she has only been on board with the county since April and has been holding outreach activities but is working to bring a county-wide outreach event back in the future.

“We have been two years without it,” Gregori said. Former veterans service officer Dan Judnic asked about the law enforcement investigation into Sherman.

“My question is who specifically ordered the law enforcement investigation?” he asked.

Graff would not release the name of the person who contacted the sheriff and referred him to sheriff Woebbeking. She said the intent of the citizen input time was to provide an opportunity to give comments to the committee and that she did not want to engage with questions at the meeting.

Wundrow urged the veterans present and anyone else with questions to stop in to the office noting they are open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day, except for being closed for lunch from noon to 1 p.m.

“Please stop in and if you hear of something that is not true, please come in and clear the air,” she said.

Veteran Paul Lukewich questioned why the lights in the office were always off. Wundrow said the overhead lighting in the room has been proven to cause anxiety and in order to improve the atmosphere they upgraded the lighting to have lamps.

“They aren’t off,” she said of the lamps.

CVSO report

In other business, committee members received a report from Wundrow detailing her activities in the past few months including becoming fully accredited in June and the hiring of specialist Karyn Gebert. Gebert’s first official day in the office was July 31 and Gebert is currently working on her accreditation.

Wundrow and Gebert staffed an outreach booth at the Taylor County Fair on July 27-30 as well as attending outreach events held in nearby counties to learn about how they put their events on.

Wundrow also reported on the work she had done to the office and its operation as well as efforts to create a veterans resource center where veterans could utilize the courthouse’s high speed internet to access veterans services including tele-health appointments to avoid having to make lengthy drives to Tomah or other veterans facilities.

To that end, she asked the committee to approve using grant funds to purchase an additional laptop with speakers and webcam that will be available for veterans to come into the office and check out and take across the hall to the service center to access information on their own or for the tele-health appointments.

She said she and Gebert would be on hand to help get the individuals started and to answer questions as needed. Committee members approved the approximately $1,700 cost for the additional laptop.

They also approved a request to use grant funds to purchase an additional display rack for informational brochures and other items for veterans and their families visiting the office.

She explained that under the federal ARPA funds, her office had $15,878 that was specific to be spent on veterans and that if the county did not use the funds by the end of next year, they would be returned to the federal government.

Wundrow said that going forward after Gebert is fully certified she would look to having walk-in hours at the Gilman Senior Center on the third Thursdays of the month from 1 to 4 p.m. and walk-in hours from 10 a.m. to noon on the second Tuesdays of the month at the VFW hall in Westboro. She hoped to have these in place beginning in November with it dependent on Gebert receiving her accreditation number.

Peterson questioned if Wundrow was spending enough time in the office given the amount of things she has been doing.

“I am in the office,” Wundrow said, noting that since she has started she had lost 1.5 hours of compensatory time because she had reached the 20-hour cap under county policy.

In other action, committee members approved the 2024 department budget with the zero percent increase. Wundrow noted she moved amounts in various areas to reflect areas where funds were not spent in the past and where they would be needed going forward.

Medford VFW post commander Bill Vach accused the county of “coming after the veterans organizations” citing a recent phone call he received asking about the VFW’s position on a recall effort underway against current Veterans Service Committee chair Catherine Lemke.Brian Wilson/The Star News