BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS -- State universities are joining a growing list of tax-supported organizations that must file campaign expense reports related to state Issue 2.
John Bender, chief elections counsel for Secretary of State Bob Taft, sent a letter to university presidents Thursday ordering them to detail spending on behalf of the proposed sales tax increase for schools and property tax relief.
The order came two days after Mr. Bender ordered the coalition of school districts that won Ohio's school-funding lawsuit to report an anti-Issue 2 videotape as an independent campaign expenditure. With their own budgets threatened, university leaders have turned to their networks of alumni and supporters to encourage support for Issue 2.
University-related groups account for nearly half of the organizations on record in favor of the tax increase. Some of their publications echo documents from the pro-Issue 2 campaign committee, known as Every Child Counts.
For instance, Ohio State University Interim President Richard Sisson and Alex Shumate, chairman of the university's board of trustees, included a note to "alumni and friends" in the latest issue of the school's alumni magazine: "We hope you will join us . . . in voting YES for State Issue 1 and State Issue 2 on May 5."
Miami University President James C. Garland published a similar note in the school's latest alumni magazine. "Issue 2 is also critically important to Miami University," he wrote. "If it fails, the state will be forced to fund school needs from other budgets. Estimates are that Miami's budget could be cut by as much as 15 percent, with devastating consequences for our programs."
Moreover, the April 3 issue of University Currents, the University of Cincinnati's faculty - staff newsletter, included an article that featured only proponents of Issue 2.
"We couldn't find any information from the opponents," said Greg Hand, UC's spokesman.
If the wording of a brochure was coordinated with Every Child Counts, Mr. Bender said, the universities must report the expenditures as in-kind contributions to the campaign committee.
Internal university newsletters, though, may not fall under the legal definition of political advertising, Mr. Bender said. Earlier this week, Mr. Bender required the Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding to file similar reports.
A 13-minute video by the coalition portrays the sales tax and related legislation as an "ill-conceived, deceptive" response to an Ohio Supreme Court decision that declared the current school-funding system inadequate and unconstitutional.
"Our best bet is for the people to vote this sales tax down," William Phillis, the coalition's executive director, says at the end of the video.
The coalition represents 550 of the state's 611 school districts and assesses each district 50 cents a student. It recently spent about $16,000 to produce the videotape and send it to school leaders. Mr. Phillis said it provides "facts and analysis" regarding the state's response to the Supreme Court decision, but stops short of urging voters to oppose it.
"I don't see what the universities are doing is any different from what we're doing," he said. "Yet the state has singled us out for scrutiny."
Unlike the coalition, universities have used private gifts instead of public funds to finance pro-Issue 2 articles in their alumni magazines, said Colleen O'Brien, OSU's director of state relations.
