Over at AOL, I wrote about Penn State’s 5-year legal battle with the Harrisburg Patriot-News over the disclosure of how much Joe Paterno makes.
Quick recap: It seems Pennsylvania’s open-records law does not apply to state related schools like Penn State, Pitt and Temple. The law might get changed this year, but in the mean time the newspaper did an end-around by requesting Joe Paterno’s records from the state pension agency — which is subject to the open-records law. Paterno says he doesn’t care, but Penn State does. Penn State went to court to block this. It is now in the state supreme court.
It seems to me like this should be a slam dunk for the newspaper. Of course, this is the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court, and nothing is guaranteed. One of the justices had to recuse herself from hearing or voting on the case because she is also a Penn State Trustee.
Predicting the PA Supreme Court is always a big question mark. [digression] Pennsylvania has long had one of the least transparent government, in part because of the court. In 1998, the court struck down a basic lobbying disclosure act because they ruled that many of the lobbyists were also practicing lawyers and the PA Supreme Court has the only authority to regulate the practice of law. A new law was passed in 2006, but if this sort of attitude from the Philadelphia Bar is any indication, I expect it to go back to the PA Supreme Court — even if it says that the PA Supreme Court is going along with it this time. [/digression]
The State Senate Majority Leader has introduced legislation that would amend the open-records law to include state-related universities. It has a pretty good chance of passing, so the whole lawsuit eventually might mean nothing.
Pitt, while not required to, has been more responsive on the disclosure of salaries front.
The health sciences chief, the football and basketball coach and two other administrators including Chancellor Mark Nordenberg were top earners at the University of Pittsburgh last year, according to a federal tax filing.
…
Second-highest was head football coach Dave Wannstedt, whose compensation of $713,138 included $675,002 in salary, $28,959 toward benefits and $9,177 for expenses and allowances.
The third-biggest earner was men’s head basketball coach Jamie Dixon, whose total earnings of $676,712 included $622,753 in salary, $38,276 toward benefits and $15,683 for expenses and allowances.
The filing, required of non-profits each year, includes pay earned by officers and non-officers of the university for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. It was released yesterday by the university in response to a request from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
This, of course, does not include Dixon and Wannstedt’s radio/TV appearance fees or the money they make from their camps. If the open-records law is passed, that information will also become known.
Seriously though, it amazes me how little play the Paterno salary story gets in Centre County.
My final analysis of the entire situation is, of course and as always, Penn State sucks. And yes, I am wearing my Pitt polo shirt today in the shadow of Old Main. Screw ’em.
PSU children want to complain that it is “none of your business” and that they pay high tuition and their school receives no money from the state. What they don’t realize is that their school receives a “nonprofit” status – meaning they pay no tax on their profit, can receive donations tax free, and in exchange they are supposed to be for the public good and be open with their financials in exchage for these benefits. It is a misconception that “nonprofit” mean you can’t make a profit; a more fitting term would be “non-taxed profit.” Not paying MILLIONS in taxes every year IS GETTING FREE MONEY FROM THE STATE. If they don’t want to be open and a nonprofit anymore, by all means, go right ahead. It is bullshit every other 501c3 publishes their entire financials every year and they do not. That is why they should be required to publish the information like EVERY OTHER 501c3 does, not because anyone has it in for PSU.
If you want to see the Form 990s for Pitt, other universities or nonprofits, go to http://www.guidestar.org. It is free to signup, and the Form 990’s are in PDF format. Pitt, CMU, Duquesne (neither of which is even public!) all have 990’s available, but Pennsylvania State University does not.
In recap, I don’t give a shit if they are a public university or not, they are a public charity under the rules THEY CHOSE TO BE GOVERNED BY – and I cannot figure out for the life of me why the don’t have to follow them. No one “has to be” a nonprofit – its actually a long, expensive process to do so. Not showing your records is ridiculous, but I’m getting used to that with PSU.
They get $350 MILLION a year from the state governement – and its only a shell game to say that the state doesn’t pay JoePa’s salary! Our tax dollars are paying his salary, along with paying for kids to go to that shithole. You don’t want to tell us how much we’re paying him – fine, go at it yourselves, send that money to Pitt. Stop wasting our tax money.
How about Pitt gets roughly half as much money as PSU. And about the same as temple. So quit your whining – the state does pay part of his salary, just like they paid part of your tuition.
I’m from out of state, I paid my whole tuition.
are they really considered an educational facility?
It’s a good thing they can’t fit Pitt in there still. Much better games with home-and-homes against Temple. NOW whats the excuse.
Only by the IRS, and we all know how intelligent and coherent they are.
In all seriousness though, haven’t you seen how good their agriculture program is? You can’t fuck with that!
Chas, what are you trying to say?
Only by the IRS, and we all know how intelligent and coherent they are.
In all seriousness though, haven’t you seen how good their agriculture program is? You can’t fuck with that!
Dont forget about their real bread and butter ..their world renowned Ice Cream Making Program.
Whoops. Fixed that. It now goes to the AOL Post (and the comments that are trickling in from PSU folk are great — he’s a legend, it’s no one’s business).
Sorry, about the strip club bit; that was an article I was using for discussion at one of my other blogs. Too many open windows and things to type.
The relevant question is whether a (partially) state-funded institution is overpaying an employee is paying significantly above market wages for the job of head coach and trying to hide it from the tax-paying public.
