Penn State open-records law exemption comes under scrutiny

Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa.

A northeastern Pennsylvania lawmaker says he wants to change the commonwealth’s 3-year-old open-records law to get rid of an exemption that allows Penn State and three other state-related universities to keep their operations out of the public eye while receiving taxpayer money.

Democratic state Sen. John Blake of Lackawanna County told The (Allentown) Morning Call that he hopes to introduce a bill early next year to end the disclosure exemption for Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities as well as the University of Pittsburgh.

The exemption has come under scrutiny since Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexual abuse involving eight boys over 15 years. School administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are charged with not properly alerting authorities to suspected abuse and with perjury. In the wake of the scandal, Joe Paterno, Division I’s winningest coach with 409 victories, was fired by university trustees. University president Graham Spanier also left his job under pressure

Terry Mutchler, executive director of the state Office of Open Records, says the four universities are required to disclose “nothing, zippo” under current law, even though they receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year in state funds. That stands in contrast with the disclosure requirements for the most- obscure state agencies or the smallest municipal government, not to mention the 14 state-owned schools in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which are fully subject to the law, Mutchler said.