Auditor to review Ohio officials’ state plane use for public business

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Ohio’s auditor plans to review whether government leaders have properly used state aircraft for public business in the past two years.

A spokeswoman from Auditor Dave Yost said his office will look at how the planes were used by Gov. John Kasich, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, former Gov. Ted Strickland and others, The Columbus Dispatch reported Saturday.

Democratic state Rep. Matt Lundy of Elyria had asked the auditor’s office to investigate how the aircraft were used, after the newspaper analyzed records and raised questions about Taylor’s use of state aircraft and Kasich ordered Taylor to reimburse the state for some trips she took.

“Once you get into an issue where there’s a reimbursement for using state property, it shows someone in the process is not comfortable with the ethics of it,” Lundy said.

Taylor paid the state more than $1,000 in November for three flights on a state plane that went to or from Akron-Canton Airport, a few miles from her home. The repayments were for the portions of larger trips that involved flying to that airport.

Aides had said Taylor didn’t act improperly but that the reimbursement erased doubt about it.

A letter this week from Yost, a Republican, to Lundy said the auditor wouldn’t investigate the “factors” that led to the reimbursement because that falls outside the scope of the Yost’s authority, the newspaper said. But Yost agreed to audit the use of state aircraft on a broader basis to “provide a good statistical basis to analyze, among other things, the costs associated with the operation of our state planes and policies relating to the use of state planes.”

Yost said the review would include how senior officials use the plane and for what purpose, as well as reimbursement policies.

Taylor used state aircraft four times last year and Kasich flew dozens of times, the newspaper said. It said Strickland used state planes 17 times in 2010, his final year in office.