Lawmakers plan to introduce legislation to revoke right-to-know exemption
By Caleb Taylor | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — Penn State University is among the worst in the country when it comes to transparency for taxpayers, according to open government activists.
A report released Monday by WikiFOIA and Sunshine Review, two pro-open government groups, said state universities in Pennsylvania, along with Delaware and Alaska, received the lowest ranking for transparency in the nation because of state-related institutions’ exemption from Pennsylvania's right-to-know law.
The universities’ exemption from the open records law has come under particular scrutiny due to the child sex abuse scandal surrounding former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
“The use of broad exemptions for state universities in these select states represents a serious flaw in open records policies. Universities ought to be accountable to citizens through transparency laws due to the large public funds they receive," said Joshua Meyer-Gutbrod, editor of WikiFOIA, in a news release.
Meyer-Gutbrod said federal law prohibits universities from making current and past student's records public record, but states, like Pennsylvania, expand this privacy to administrative records, including salaries and travel records.
The four state-related institutions are Lincoln University, Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh and Temple University. Alaska and Delaware have similar exemptions.
Commonly referred to as the state’s right-to-know law, Act 3 requires all records of state and municipal governmental agencies to be open to public access, including financial documents, contracts and emails from officials.
Terry Mutchler, executive director of the state Office of Open Records, which enforces the right-to-know law, said Act 3 is one of “the strongest (right-to-know) laws in the nation” but the exemption for state-related universities needs to be corrected.
While Gov. Tom Corbett has not declared his support for the bills, he said he would consider some type of reform.
Corbett believes now is “an awfully good time” to review the state-related universities’ right-to-know exemption, said his spokesman, Kevin Harley.
Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester, said the Senate State Government Committee plans to hold a hearing in December or January to discuss the exemption issue.
Following the Penn State University child sexual abuse scandal, state Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-York and state Sen. John Blake, D-Lackawanna, said they plan to introduce similar bills in the House and Senate that remove the exemption.
The General Assembly also has announced that a bipartisan, bicameral commission is expected to be formed to investigate state oversight of Penn State and determine what legislative fixes, if any, should be pursued.
In August 2007, when the state right-to-know law was being considered at a hearing in the House State Government Committee, Graham Spanier, then-president of Penn State, opposed including the school under the law, because he didn't want to publicize individual salaries and financial information about private donors.
Spanier resigned last week when the child sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky emerged, but he remains a tenured professor.
