passopenrecords.org

A good friend of mine in the state legislature argues that open records reform – or what passes for it to date – has opened up a Pandora’s box of payroll comparisons and salary envy in the Capitol. As legislators post information on staff salaries on the Internet, he said, the people who seem to care the most are those who want to see who makes more or less than they do.

Similar arguments emerged a couple of decades ago when some newspapers began pushing to get and print the salaries of teachers and administrators in the school districts they covered. Many of the concerns which were then – and continue to be – raised are not without merit. Most people don’t particularly want to see their salaries published in the local newspaper. Moreover, private-sector employers do all they can to keep the wages of their workers confidential, if for no other reason than to keep the lid on office gossip. (The fact that everyone in the office usually knows how much everyone else makes is, perhaps, beside the point.)

So why is it any of my – or your – business how much the local second-grade teacher makes? And why, other than for the purposes of celebrity voyeurism, is it our business how much Joe Paterno makes – despite the fact that the salaries of most other coaches, professional athletes and movie stars are public knowledge almost before the ink on the contract is dry?

The answer is: because we pay them – or in the case of Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials whose salaries the university refuses to make public, because we pay a portion of their salaries. We are, in a real sense, these peoples’ employers, and as such we have the right to know how much we are paying them. Sometimes I wonder whether the real reason Penn State is balking at publishing Paterno’s salary is because of what it might say about the relative importance of athletics and academics at that institution of higher education. And surely that is an issue worth public and open debate. In any event, Jan Murphy of the Harrisburg Patriot-News requested the information FIVE years ago; a lower court affirmed that the information was public in 2005; Penn State appealed; and last week, the Supreme Court finally began hearing the case.

These are not easy issues. The idea of publishing information such as salaries makes most of us a little squeamish. But when you go to work in the public sector, you have to play by public-sector rules. And frankly, I don’t much care what Joe makes, but it ought to be public information.

As Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court declared in the 1974 case of Kenzelmeyer v. Eger, “one of the necessary disadvantages of public employment is the requirement of public accountability.” It is not just our right as taxpayers to have access to this information. It is our responsibility as citizens to hold accountable those who act on our behalf in the public arena.

Let’s not forget that much of the impetus behind the current reform movement in state government stems from the 2005 legislative pay increases. The lawmakers may have voted themselves raises in the dark of night, but that doesn’t mean the people should be kept in the dark about how much we pay our representatives. So it is – or at least ought to be – with all public employees.

Two good opinions on the Paterno dispute appeared in local newspapers this week. Excerpts and links to the full articles are below.

http://www.publicopiniononline.com/opinion/ci_5945106

• In Our view: Paterno’s salary should be revealed, Matt Furman wrote on behalf of the editorial board of the Public Opinion of Chambersburg:

Penn State gets roughly 10 percent of its more than $3 billion budget from the state, but is a separate entity.

Ten percent or 10 cents, when public money is used to fund anything, we have a right to know who is benefiting from it, and how much they’re getting.

With Penn State football either loved or despised in much of the mid-state, it’s easy to let team partisanship guide opinions, but the fact remains: this isn’t about football, it’s about public information the rich and powerful don’t want you to possess.

It’s the job of each of us to remind them, briskly if necessary, that that’s a right they don’t have.

• And the Williamsport Sun-Gazette editorialized on the need for public records overhaul:

Arguments were heard this past week by the state Supreme Court on whether secret salaries of Penn State employees, including football coach Joe Paterno and some high-level administrators, should be released to the public.

The fact that these arguments are necessary underlines how restrictive the state’s Right-to-Know Law is. Penn State and the state’s three other “state-related” universities – Temple, Pittsburgh and Lincoln – are exempt from the state’s Right-to-Know Law. We’re not kidding.

In other states, the salaries of coaches and administrators at major universities are a routine part of information gathering for stories.

They aren’t the subject of court cases that drag on for three years.

We appreciate the fresh attitude toward public records that the new leadership in the Legislature has exhibited. We clearly need to bring the public’s right to know in Pennsylvania into the 21st century.
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That’s what they think. What do you think?