Anonymous supporters of a tax-funded tuition-voucher program in Cleveland yesterday paid the state $80,000 owed by a school that received money for phantom students. Supporters wanted to get the controversy resolved and return the focus to improving oversight of the 4-year-old program, said David Zanotti, chairman of the School Choice Committee.

The committee, which includes voucher supporters from around the state, arranged the payment. Donors from Ohio and elsewhere wish to be unnamed, Zanotti said. Under the $11 million voucher program, 3,800 students from poor families in kindergarten through fourth grade are receiving up to $2,250 a year for tuition to the private school of their choice. Fifty-six schools in the Cleveland Public School District, most of which are church-affiliated, accept vouchers. A state audit released last week revealed that one of the schools, the Islamic Academy School of Art and Sciences, received $69,967 for the students who weren't attending school.

The school owes $11,723 for utility bills paid by Cleveland schools but which were the responsibility of the school, according to state auditor Jim Petro. The school has closed, and its operators have not been located by the state officials. "The debt is now settled because the amount of the finding has been paid, and the people who paid it, I consider that a heroic act," Petro said yesterday. "I didn't expect it would be collected. We couldn't find the folks who owned the school, and even if we could I'm not sure they would have been in a position to write a check." Payment, however, does not eliminate that school operators could face criminal charges.

Petro's audit remains under review by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office for possible criminal investigation. Zanotti yesterday said the voucher program continues to give low-income families an education alternative they otherwise would not have. The problems with the school were preventable and underscore the need to tighten oversight of the program, he added. The School Choice Committee is pushing for legislation introduced in the General Assembly last week that would put Petro in charge of the program instead of the Ohio Department of Education.

Petro said that, because his office audits schools, it would be a conflict for him to manage one of them, but he said he will continue working with the Education Department to tighten efforts to monitor the program.