Ohio Governor Offers No Date to Reopen S

Gov. Richard F. Celeste, emerging from an all-day meeting with federal and state officials, said Saturday that he could not promise that 70 of Ohio’s savings and loan associations would reopen Monday.

The meetings were designed to develop a plan to stabilize the savings and loans that Celeste on Friday had ordered closed for three days. He acted after one S&L; closed after a run on its deposits and depositors lined up overnight at two other institutions.

The governor said Federal Reserve officials, state officials and state banking executives probably would continue their meetings today as they sought ways to prevent runs on the institutions.

Celeste, when asked at a news conference about whether the institutions might reopen Monday, replied: “I can’t really give you an accurate answer to that. I know we’re working very energetically here . . . to get them open as quickly as we can.”

Possible Solutions

Celeste has said he acted to give the financial community time to develop a plan to restore confidence in the S&Ls.; Among the possibilities are providing state-chartered institutions with federal deposit insurance or having Ohio’s major commercial banks consider taking over the affected S&Ls.;

Customers, alarmed by the March 9 closing of the Cincinnati-based Home State Savings Assn., had camped overnight last week outside at least two other Cincinnati thrift institutions to withdraw their money.

The lines were blamed on eroding confidence in the Ohio Deposit Guarantee Fund, which insured Home State as well as the 70 institutions covered by the governor’s order. The closing did not affect federally insured S&Ls.;