Report: Unions favored in building of schools in Ohio

August 6, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

An official who oversees school-building projects in Ohio abused his authority in handing out construction contracts, the state watchdog said in a Thursday report.

Ohio School Facilities Commission chief Richard Murray gave unions favored status and joined labor representatives in “arm-twisting sessions” with local school districts, according to the report by Inspector General Tom Charles.

The report also says Murray backed a union-friendly project-labor agreement worth $37 million that would result in payments to a union to which Murray still belongs and to his former union employer, Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust, known as LECET. The work would take place at the Ohio Schools for the Deaf and Blind, which are under the direct control of Murray’s commission.

Murray criticized the report’s findings and defended his conduct as professional. He said only 12.7 percent of Ohio school districts are using project-labor agreements and about half of those were in place before he came on board in September 2009.

He also says he has no intention to give in to a call from the top Senate Republican to step down.

“If I intimidated, if I strong-armed, that would be one thing. But I reject those assertions,” said Murray, who was appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat.

The School Facilities Commission hands out more than $1 billion a year for school construction. It was created in 1997 to work with local school districts on school renovation and construction projects.

In its first decade, under Republican governors, commission rules didn’t allow local districts to require union-scale prevailing wages or the union-friendly project-labor agreements on construction jobs.

That changed under the Strickland administration, but judgments were to be left up to the district, with the commission remaining neutral.

While characterizing some of Murray’s lapses in judgment as “arguably minor,” Charles’ investigation says he ultimately violated that neutrality. The review found Murray continued to use his LECET-issued cell phone and e-mail address for commission work, attended social engagements with union organizations and not nonunion ones, and at one point inquired of state ethics officials about staying on as a consultant for his old union employer.

“Rather than put unions on equal footing, we found that Murray provided them with undue access and accommodations,” the report said.

The investigation separately found wrong- doing by Gary Coleman, a union official accused of shouting profanities and intimidating local school officials during a meeting that prompted one of the complaints against Murray. Coleman also was a trustee at Shawnee State University, but Strickland accepted his resignation in July. A message seeking comment was left at his home Thursday.