Investigation says former Ohio AG misused aircraft

By JULIE CARR SMYTH

AP Statehouse Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann misused state aircraft to travel to and from his Youngstown home and twice took his daughter on flights for which she wasn't authorized, according to a state investigation released Wednesday.

Three state transportation officials also improperly used state planes to commute, according to the findings released by Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles.

The probe of state aircraft use from 2005 to present was unrelated to a broad investigation into activities at the office once run by Dann, who resigned in May amid a sexual harassment scandal. The aircraft findings that relate to Dann will be referred to a state task force handling that investigation.

Dann refuted the findings in an e-mail Wednesday.

"I only used state aircraft for state business. The plane picked me up and took me to places where I was conducting state business and only when my schedule did not allow for car travel," he wrote. "Since there was no additional cost to the state I took my daughter with me on two occasions."

Dann said state business kept him away from his family a great deal and he occasionally involved them in his state business travels when it could be done at no additional cost to the state.

The report described overall management of the state's 30 airplanes, primarily handled by the Ohio Department of Transportation, as haphazard, inconsistent and lacking proper paperwork -- making the system rife for misuse. One state official is accused of falsifying a document after the investigation began. Charles, who serves in his role as a state watchdog, decided on his own to review the operations.

Neither ODOT nor the other two state agencies with planes, the Natural Resources and Public Safety departments, routinely require documentation listing a trip's business purpose from the high-ranking officials who fly on them, investigators said. Passenger lists are often inaccurate or nonexistent.

"ODOT pilots informed us that it is not uncommon for passengers who have never been listed on the manifest to show up at the airport, ready to fly, just prior to takeoff," the report said. This happened twice with Dann's daughter, the report said.

ODOT spokesman Scott Varner said the most important point stemming from the report was that the department often doesn't know who is in the air on the state planes.

"What is significant to us is this issue that our crews on the ground need to know who's in the air, and heaven forbid something would happen to one of our planes and we not know who's on board," Varner said. "We have already put those policies into place to make sure, before a pilot takes off, our ground crews know who's on board and who's not on board."

Office of Aviation deputy director Carla Cefaratti told state inspectors that the transportation department had been wrestling with pilots since the 1980s over the accuracy of state flight logs. Pilots told inspectors that they saw the safety of passengers as their primary duty and weren't aware that logs they considered "scratch pads" were official state records.

"In our view, it is long past time for ODOT officials to unambiguously express that flight logs are, in fact, official records which must be maintained accurately," the report said.

ODOT did not strictly limit travel of its planes to official business, inspectors found, sanctioning three officials during the time period to use aircraft to commute to work. The three were assistant director Mary Ellen Kimberlin, who lived in Ashland; assistant director Rich Martinko, who lived in Toledo; and deputy director of construction management William Lindenbaum, who lived in New Philadelphia.

The investigation found that the number of flights on state planes has fallen significantly since Gov. Ted Strickland took office in January 2007. The report identified 729 flights from 2004 to 2006, or about 243 a year, under former Gov. Bob Taft, and 192 so far under Strickland, or about 128 a year.

State law enforcement and wildlife officers are the most frequent users of state planes, the analysis found.

In a separate investigation out Wednesday, the Inspector General identified mismanagement and abuse in ODOT's overuse of unbid emergency contracts since 2004. The state found no fraud, but said the department turned to the unbid contract process to meet project deadlines and save time, which pushed up costs by an estimated $8.3 million.

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Office of the Inspector General: www.watchdog.ohio.gov