Theodore Decker: Years after its collapse, ECOT still costs Ohio plenty

With all that has gone on in the world since, the scandal surrounding the not-so-recently deceased Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow feels like $80 million ago.

ECOT, Ohio's first and, at one point, largest online charter school, shut down three years ago after the Ohio Department of Education demanded the school repay that much of its state aid for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years.

The state said the overpayment was based on inflated enrollment numbers provided by ECOT.

That was far from the end of it. The end, in fact, is nowhere in sight.

The school has not repaid the $80 million, and for the past three years has been engaged in court battles about it on various fronts, with ECOT lawyers arguing everything but, "We shouldn't have to pay back Ohio because the state would just blow it on something else anyway."

That approach might have some merit, honestly.

More:Former ECOT treasurer could help state recover millions from school's founder Bill Lager

The school's latest arguments were made Tuesday before the Ohio Supreme Court, where ECOT is asking whether a state Board of Education decision requiring the payback is the last word.

"We’re just left ultimately with the pure statutory question of whether or not, when a statute calls a decision 'final,' that somehow that still allows (further appeals)," said attorney Erik Clark, representing the Ohio Department of Education and the state school board. "This court will decide what the word 'final' means."

The court will likely take several months to draft and issue its opinion. Ultimately, it is only one of the venues left sorting this whole mess out.

Multiple courts have resulted in reams of court documents, a range of decisions and reversals, reversals of reversals and probably reversals of the reversals' reversals.

The docket of another case, separate from the one heard Tuesday, shows the scope of the ECOT debacle.

This case is pending in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and was not filed by ECOT, but by the state attorney general's office.

According to court filings, Attorney General Dave Yost wants to recover many millions from Bill Lager, who the attorney general argues violated his fiduciary duty as a public official of ECOT by doing business through his companies, Altair Learning Management and IQ Innovations, and Third Wave Communications, a company owned by his daughter.

Altair Learning Management and IQ Innovations were paid millions to provide management and software services to ECOT. Third Wave was hired to produce videos and commercials for the school.

Perusing random case documents means slowly sinking into legal quicksand. Among the many headings: "Defendant's Response to Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment as to the Lager Defendants."

A number of former ECOT officials have agreed to help the state prove this case against Lager, who Yost has called "the principal wrongdoer," but the "Defendant's Response to Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment as to the Lager Defendants" takes umbrage with that portrayal.

In it, lawyers for Lager labor to show what he is and was not:

"Lager was not a fiduciary of ECOT."

"Lager was not a public official."

"Lager was not an officer or employee of ECOT."

"Lager was not an 'agent' of ECOT."

"Lager did not violate Ohio's Corrupt Practices Act." 

"Lager was not a duly authorized representative of ECOT."

"R.C. 9.39 does not apply to Lager."

"The State's grand, salutary objective to recover in excess of $100,000,000 for school districts is nothing more than a gambit to inflame and distract the Court while the State makes an end-run around the law," the lawyers for Lager and the three companies argue.

We have known for years that ECOT squandered our tax dollars. Even with that spigot turned off, the school remains adept at wasting our time.

tdecker@dispatch.com

@Theodore_Decker