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Thanks a Lot, George

Scandal has shaken many a state agency, but the current governor is only partly to blame. Many of these losers were left by his predecessor.

By David W. Martin 

Governor Bob Taft must be feeling pretty low these days.

His prescription-drug plan was delayed, then upstaged by another design. His promise not to raise the sales tax without a vote by the masses vanished when legislators wouldn't go for his budget-balancing tariffs on booze and smokes. A university study suggested that his Ohio Reads program is little more than a $138 million publicity stunt.

Then, on Election Day 2003, voters rejected Issue 1, a bond issue that would have released $500 million in grants and loans to Ohio businesses and research centers. Issue 1 was a major component of the Third Frontier, Taft's attempt to scrape the rust from the state's economy. The Issue 1 campaign spent $3 million and faced no organized opposition.

It also picked a lousy frontman in Bob Taft.

In happier times, Taft's lack of charisma might have been seen as refreshing triumph of substance over style. But with all indicators pointing downward, he looks a boob, a wuss -- yet another argument against choosing leaders for their paternal bloodlines.

Surely, anyone in the seat of power would have struggled to govern a state hollowed by a national recession, a nitwit legislature, and a tax-averse, entitlement-inclined public. State-government work these days is synonymous with crisis management. Ohio's tax hikes and service reductions, then, might be tolerable if the state appeared to be in capable hands. One-party rule should buy at least a little efficiency, right? Alas, it does not. In the last three years, scandal has wended through state government like a flu bug through a crowded house.

· The Department of Job and Family Services paid $60 million for an internet system that had to be junked months later. The same agency illegally withheld millions in child support from needy families.

· Bosses at the state fair, the turnpike, and the commission that oversees new school construction lost their jobs after investigations revealed their greediness for gifts from contractors.

· The state health director awarded an unbid, $25,000 contract to two sons of Dick Schafrath, a former state senator and "fitness czar." One son lived in Connecticut; the other was a college student.

· A high-ranking Department of Transportation official was fired for asking the Ohio Ready Mixed Concrete Association to refer a driveway specialist. (Naturally, she got a good deal.) Separately, an Ohio newspaper questioned how the transportation department paid at least $10 million in overtime for eight consecutive years.

· Shredded documents and tee times with utility execs doomed Rob Tongren, the head of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel. Tongren ordered the destruction of a report suggesting that he let First Energy rake off undeserved billions from the negotiating table.

Tongren embarrassed the governor only to the extent that the episode gave newspapers grounds to mention that Taft occasionally borrows the First Energy jet. Tongren is not a "Taft guy," as he was named counsel in 1994, four years before the current governor's first election.

In fact, many of the public officials recently exposed as cheats and incompetents rose to their stations during the tenure of Taft's predecessor, George Voinovich, now a United States senator.

Voinovich has built a reputation for thrift during his many years in public office. He carried the City of Cleveland out of default and, as governor, held state spending to its lowest growth in 30 years. "Everyone has to work harder and smarter and do more with less," he liked to say. It is said that he once fished a coin out of a urinal.

For a select few, however, Voinovich's charge to exert and conserve did not apply. Some of his most trusted advisors and most significant appointees used public service for personal gain. Functionaries, they fancied themselves something more and rewarded themselves accordingly.

Taft is left to mop up their inflated sense of self-worth.

The Ohio School Facilities Commission worked on a sort of buddy system. Everybody was buddies with everybody else.

The commission was created in 1997, as the legislature grappled with the lawsuit challenging the state's method of funding public education. To address some of the inequalities between richer and poorer districts, lawmakers appropriated billions of dollars to repair and replace crumbling schools. The project is so massive that the commission spends about $2.5 million a day.

As run by Executive Director Randall Fischer until he resigned in 2002, the commission strove to forge "cooperative relationships" among architects, builders, and school districts. Such "partnering," as it was called, was designed to "minimize disputes and nurture a more collaborative ethic." It also allowed Fischer and other senior staff to accept meals, tickets to entertainment events, and golf invitations from contractors. A report by the inspector general, the state watchdog, said that Fischer took the partnering concept "to an entirely new level."

Many of the builders who made gifts to Fischer and other officials received unbid work -- $45.6 million worth, according to The Columbus Dispatch's calculation. The inspector general said that the facilities commission failed to ensure that school districts received the best quality at the lowest cost; a Franklin County judge called the bidding process a "sham."

Fischer quit after acknowledging that he socialized with and accepted gifts from contractors. He was convicted last summer on two criminal ethics charges.

Fischer had been appointed to the commission by then-Governor Voinovich. Before then, Fischer was state architect under Voinovich. The two men went back to Voinovich's first campaign for governor, when Fischer was the advance man.

As state architect, Fischer was in a position to select construction managers for various state projects. One such company, Banks Carbone Construction, won at least $3.7 million in no-bid state contracts. The Akron Beacon Journal revealed that much of the work came after the Banks and Carbone families contributed more than $10,000 to the governor's reelection effort. Banks Carbone also hired the governor's campaign treasurer as its accountant.

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