Parents for Choice in Education filed a complaint with Lt. Gov. Gayle McKeachnie on Tuesday and urged him to remind public employees that they can't use public facilities for campaign purposes.

The political action committee, which supports Republican candidate Jon Huntsman Jr., complains that UEA President Pat Rusk, who also is an Alpine School District teacher, forwarded Matheson campaign-volunteer opportunities to dozens of teachers over district e-mail accounts.

"To us, there's not a big difference between using a public e-mail address during work hours or using a public copy machine to make copies of a campaign flier," said Elisa Clements Peterson, executive director of the PAC. "It's an issue of using public funds for election purposes. We just want to make sure everyone's playing fair."

Rusk said it was her understanding that the union is allowed to send e-mails to teachers at their schools.

"We believe that we have the right and responsibility to communicate with our members on issues of importance," she said in an e-mail while traveling Tuesday. "Acceptable-use policies are in place and vary from district to district, and we ask our local leaders to stay within those guidelines. If an error has indeed occurred, we regret it and will once again remind them to follow their district policies."

State officials will investigate the allegation, but Elections Director Amy Naccarato said she doubted anyone violated election laws.

"This is probably more of an issue with the district's acceptable-use policy rather than a violation of Utah code," she said. "We'll spend a few days checking things out."

Election law says that public entities may not make expenditures from public funds for political purposes.

District officials also will look into the allegation, Alpine School District spokeswoman Jerrilyn Mortensen said.

"We will be investigating, and if in fact our employee has acted inappropriately, we will take appropriate personnel action," she said.

The Matheson campaign has been recruiting volunteers among all of its supporters, campaign manager Mike Zuhl said.

"It would not be uncommon to make a phone call or make an e-mail request to individuals and organizations," he said.

"We had no knowledge that would be forwarded through school e-mail networks."

rlynn@sltrib.com