Was Gutierrez building a ‘printing empire on the 15th floor’ ?

COLUMBUS — An unbid contract for more than $150,000 in copying and printing equipment signed by Anthony Gutierrez, the recently ousted administrator in Attorney General Marc Dann’s office, is wasteful and unnecessary, another state agency has determined.

The Ohio Department of Administrative Services, the business branch of state government, has held up payment and asked Dann’s office to return the equipment Gutierrez leased, which has been delivered but not installed.

“Overkill and waste,” DAS spokesman Ron Sylvester said about the Gutierrez contract, which would have given Dann’s office the largest printing and copying operation in state government at nearly double the annual cost.

Administrative services, as part of Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration, does not have veto power over purchases by Dann, a separately elected officeholder. However, DAS controls the bookkeeping system and placed an “administrative hold” on the contract, thus holding up payment.

The unbid contract with a Xerox Corp. office in Dublin was steered by Gutierrez, who was fired last week, and his boss, Edgar S. Simpson, chief of staff, who resigned rather than be fired. Both personnel actions came in response to an internal investigation that found that Dann’s administration fostered a “hostile work environment” that resulted in two sexual-harassment claims.

Asked about the unbid contract, spokesman Ted Hart said that the attorney general’s office is “planning to reconsider the whole issue before making any decisions.”

Sylvester said agency officials learned “some months ago that Gutierrez had this idea to build a printing empire on the 15th floor of the Rhodes Tower.”

Read more in Saturday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com