OSU president cleared by state ethics commission

COLUMBUS (AP) — The state ethics commission says Ohio State University President Gorden Gee didn’t willfully do anything wrong when he left some travel expenses off his financial disclosure statements.

The investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission was triggered by an investigation into Gee’s travel expenses by the Dayton Daily News. The panel decided Thursday that the omissions were inadvertent. Gee was given permission to add to his statements from 2007 to 2011.

The newspaper reported that since 2007 the university has paid more than $1 million in travel costs for Gee, including $409,476 last year. The figure is roughly 20 percent higher than initially reported by Gee.