OSU Official Fails To Satisfy Construction Concern

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State University will give a greater share of its billions in construction work to minority contractors in the future and would make sure new construction criteria are carried out responsibly, president E. Gordon Gee told state lawmakers during a rare Statehouse appearance Monday.

Gee told state lawmakers that updating Ohio's antiquated public construction rules could save the university hundreds of millions of dollars that it could then spend on more job-creating initiatives or finding a cure for cancer.

"Construction reform has such a sense of urgency because it's intended to move us at least into the 20th century and hopefully into the 21st century," he said. Gee told lawmakers the 132-year-old rules were first written for contracts for canal construction.

But Gee's dramatic appearance before the powerful Senate Finance Committee and his public promises to do more business with minority firms did little to appease a group of black lawmakers that opposes putting the construction changes into budget-balancing legislation.

State Sen. Shirley Smith, a Cleveland Democrat who is black, said Gee didn't change her position that the construction rules need a full legislative airing before they become law.

"Because if it doesn't go through the Legislature, I'm telling you, we're going to end up in a place that we (blacks) were 200 years ago - and that's left out of the process," she said.

But Republicans who control the majority of votes in the Senate challenged members of Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland's administration during the same hearing over its seeming about-face on the construction rules. Strickland initiated the task force that proposed the new set of rules, which would allow public entities several additional options when doing business with construction and trades contractors.

Ohio is one of the few states left that uses a so-called "multiple prime" system to organize public projects. Other options, including using a general contractor and subcontractors, could save an estimated 10 percent to 30 percent on some projects.

State Sen. Gary Cates, a West Chester Republican, called it "wholly inconsistent" that the GOP-controlled Senate is prepared to pass Strickland's panel's construction recommendations, yet the administration is now opposed to acting.

"It seems to me that the governor wants to have it both ways, with a 21st century education system and 19th century construction reform language," Cates told Strickland's director of administrative services Hugh Quill during the hearing. Quill was one of two members of Strickland's cabinet called to testify at Monday's hearing, which ended again in stalemate. Chancellor Eric Fingerhut also testified.

After a separate appearance, Strickland criticized the Senate leadership for insisting on putting such a hot-button issue into the budget-balancing bill, which is necessary to fill an $851 million budget gap left after a plan to legalize racetrack slots was sidelined by a court decision.

Strickland questioned why Republicans so urgently want construction reform now that they feel the need to tack it onto the budget bill. An earlier attempt to pepper the Senate version of the budget-balancing legislation with add-ons could not garner the votes needed for passage, largely because it contains Strickland's plan to suspend a planned tax cut for two years.

"I would just respectfully remind them (Republicans) that for nearly 16 years they controlled the entire apparatus of state government - the governor's office, the Senate and the House - and they chose not to deal with construction reform," Strickland said.

"I am the governor who established the study committee and I am the one who has been working now for months to bring us to a point where we can have a consensus deal that will accomplish what needs to be accomplished," he said. "And so I am a little puzzled that after being so neglectful for nearly two decades, that they would insist that we can't balance our budget without this provision being included."

Quill, however, acknowledged that the administration could have done a better job of including minority interests on the construction reform panel. The committee had just one black member.

Panel facilitator Jeffrey Appelbaum testified, however, that the group took the interests of many groups into consideration even though they weren't represented.

"Everything that we are doing is important and useful to the minority/small business community," he said.