State School Board Ends Roll-Call Votes

By Mary Beth Lane - Cleveland Plain Dealer (10-11-95)

COLUMBUS - Ignoring criticism from a state law makers pushing for more open government, the State Board of Education voted yesterday to discard roll-call votes for voice votes.

Roll calls will be taken on some items up for a vote only if one-fifth of the 19 board members demand them under the terms of the resolution the board adopted 13-4.

Proponents of voice votes said they would save time and make the board more efficient. Opponents argued that board members' accountability to the public demanded that roll-call votes be preserved.

Board members who voted against abolishing roll calls were Virgil E. Brown Jr. of Cleveland Heights; Anita M. Tighe of Concord Township in Lake County Marie S. Pfeiffer of Columbus and Diana M. Fessler of New Carlisle.

Sen. W. Scott Oelslager, a Canton Republican who is promoting legislation to improve Ohio's open-records law, sharply criticized the state school board's abolition of roll-call votes.

"The majority of the state board is still elected by the public, and they should be individually accountable to voters," Oelslager said. "If their individual votes are not recorded, where is the accountability?"

He added that Gov. George V. Voinovich's eight appointees, who recently joined 11 independently elected members on the board, should be no less accountable to the public.

"Over 1 million children in Ohio deserve for the sun to shine on the deliberations that figure into their futures," Oelslager said

Virtually all of Voinovich's appointees voted to discard roll calls for voice votes. Two board members were absent: Oliver Ocasek, an elected member from Northfield, and Dwight H. Hibbard, a Voinovich appointee from Cincinnati.

Board President Virginia Purdy, who voted to abolish roll calls, said the board would remain accountable to the public. She said voice votes would simply save time.

"We now have a 19-member board, many of whom are business people who are pushing for more efficiency," she said.