BOARD OF REGENTS Panel raises concerns

The regents chancellor is slated to run an online college created by the regents.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- The Ohio Ethics Commission is troubled by the state's higher education board's appointing its outgoing leader to a new board-created job.
The ethics panel issued an advisory opinion Friday saying that a plan by the board of regents to structure a new post for Chancellor Roderick Chu is potentially unethical.
Chu is stepping down May 12 to run an online college created by the higher education agency.
In general, Ohio law prohibits public officials from using their office or influence to secure anything of value for themselves. At Friday's meeting, ethics commissioners seemed uncomfortable that Chu had advocated creating the virtual school.
"I don't want to send any message that we've lowered the standard," Commissioner Merom Brachman said.
In the job, Chu would analyze the impact of higher education policy and funding on the economy for the proposed Ralph Regula School of Computational Science, a virtual college.
The regents, who oversee $2.47 billion in higher education spending, provide policy advice to the governor and lawmakers, put new education policies in place and lobby the Legislature for state funding.
Regents' response
Edmund Adams, chair of the board of regents, said the board will review the ethics panel's opinion.
Chu said the opinion could create a "roadblock" for the work he had hoped to do for the virtual school and that he and the regents might go back to the Ethics Commission to discuss other alternatives.
The school is to operate mostly on federal grants.
In its opinion, the Ethics Commission said an exception in the ethics law could allow Chu to take the post if he is paid by the regents instead of the virtual school.
During Friday's meeting, Ethics Commission Chairwoman Sarah Brown asked the regents' attorney, Kris Frost, if the school would still be created if Chu does not take the position.
"I think there might be a question of whether that particular project proceeds," Frost said.
The regents have told the commission that Chu did not intend to work at the school when he proposed its creation and that a position for him there did not come up until he announced his retirement.
Chu, 57, a former management consultant and New York state university trustee, was appointed chancellor in 1998.
He earned $220,480 as the state's leading advocate for higher education funding, or $90,000 more than Gov. Bob Taft. His new salary hasn't been set.