Bill would ax panel's selection of director

COLUMBUS - A month after a state investigation determined that the director of the Ohio agency that spends $2.8 million a day building new schools was too cozy with labor unions, a lawmaker has proposed changing how the job is filled.

Rep. Kris Jordan (R., Powell) has introduced a bill to strip the three-member Ohio School Facilities Commission of its authority to choose its executive director.

Two members of that commission - the state's budget and administrative services directors - were directly appointed by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, and the appointment of the third, the state education superintendent, was influenced by him.

Instead, Mr. Jordan would give the authority to appoint the director directly to the governor, but only with the consent of the Senate, now controlled by Republicans.

"If the governor actually appoints a director of an agency, the Senate gets to vet them and have advice and consent powers," Mr. Jordan said. "But they got around that with the school facilities commission because the governor doesn't directly appoint the director. There's one level of buffer even though all three of them are doing what he's telling them to do."

A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate.

Strickland spokesman Amanda Wurst said the governor will review the proposed bill.

"It's difficult to discern what this accomplishes exactly," Ms. Wurst said. "It appears to be another attempt by Republicans in the legislature to score political points during a campaign season."

In early August, Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles determined that commission Executive Director Richard Murray, a former union leader, had not left his past behind and had promoted labor work and union-scale wages for school construction projects partially funded by the state.

"As director, Murray has repeatedly allowed his union ties to undermine the credibility of his position and that of the OSFC," Mr. Charles wrote in his report. "Murray was instructed upon his appointment to treat unions as 'constituents' or 'stakeholders.' Instead, Murray conferred upon unions a favored status at the expense of nonunion competitors, local school districts, and the OSFC's own guidelines."

The commission was set up in 1997 using borrowed and general-fund revenue to help school districts pay for major renovation or new construction of schools. The share of a project that would be borne by the state is determined by a needs-based formula weighted in favor of poorer schools.

The program was exempted from the state's prevailing wage law, which generally requires regional union-scale wages on public construction projects. The prevailing wage is a perennial partisan fight with Democrats generally supporting it, arguing that it would involve higher-skilled labor and better-quality work, and Republicans opposing it, citing increased cost.

In 2007, after Mr. Strickland took office, the commission pursued a policy of allowing school districts the option of adopting agreements to employ local union labor and pay prevailing wages. The commission recently responded to the inspector general's report by unanimously adopting a resolution reaffirming its position that schools have that choice and disagreeing with the inspector general's suggestion that Mr. Murray unduly tried to influence board administrators' decisions.

" … (U)nder previous administrations, the commission was quite open in its policy of opposition to both prevailing wage requirements and Project Labor Agreements," the resolution read. "In fact, it was made clear to school districts that no state co-funding of their projects would be granted if they chose a prevailing wage requirement or a PLA.

"The present administration has determined as a matter of policy that it will no longer penalize any school district that desires to adopt a prevailing wage requirement or enter into a PLA," it added.

Despite the change in commission policy, few school projects have adopted project labor agreements. Only about a dozen school building projects involve such agreements, according to Bryan C. Williams, director of government affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Ohio.

The organization represents about 800 construction companies promoting the use of nonunion firms in public projects. It has two lawsuits pending before the Ohio Supreme Court that challenge the school facilities' commission's interpretation of the law.

"Strickland is just a soldier in a bigger army," Mr. Williams said.

"He fired [former director Mike] Shoemaker because he didn't push this enough. They adopted the policy to allow school districts to make a choice over something they don't have a choice to do."

Contact Jim Provance at:

jprovance@theblade.com

or 614-221-0496.