PHEAA Responds
Jun 6th, 2007 by JamieB
We received this post earlier today, and I think it is important to give full coverage to a matter on which we have spent so much time and space.
What would a blog be without something or someone to ruffle your feathers…allow me to first get this out an in the open, I am a PHEAA employee.
The Patriot News has published several articles regarding PHEAA and it’s practices. Respectfully they also published PHEAA’s counterpoint. I believe it is important to show both points of view…I am copying the editorial that was posted in today’s Patriot News.
Published in the Patriot News on Wednesday June 06, 2007.
COUNTERPOINT RICHARD E. WILLEY
PHEAA guarded data from competitors
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Your recent article and editorial concerning the legal costs incurred by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency in the litigation caused by the unprecedented Right to Know Act request by several media outlets, including The Patriot-News, was factually misleading.
These overly broad requests necessitated the production of over 50,000 documents, tying up over 30 employees for weeks. Interestingly, only 300 of 50,000 documents requested were copied by The Patriot-News and the other media.
Your contention that we were trying to shield the costs of board workshops that occurred years ago is erroneous and reference to your files would show that the full cost of these workshops had been published long ago. What these requests actually involved was a shotgun approach that would have led to disclosure of proprietary competitive information concerning PHEAA’s marketing efforts with its business clients. In addition, the request sought personal information, such as credit card, telephone and even Social Security numbers, the disclosure of which would have been improper under the law.
The disclosure of this proprietary competitive information would have helped PHEAA’s for-profit competitors steal PHEAA’s business clients by knowing its marketing plans. Commonwealth Court, in an opinion that noted in its first sentence that this case involved questions of law that had never been decided in our state, rejected this attempt to obtain proprietary competitive information and is exactly why PHEAA sought the court’s guidance immediately by asking for a Declaratory Order. Unfortunately, it was your position that this matter should be drawn out and go through a full evidentiary hearing at a lower level, only to return to the court whose guidance PHEAA originally sought.
PHEAA is running a multibillion-dollar, self-funded proprietary business as a publicly sponsored enterprise and returns more than $200 million a year in public benefits and programs, including zero fee loans, military loan forgiveness, programs to address our critical nursing shortage and an unprecedented level of support — this year $75 million — for our State Grant Program.
We would have preferred to spend the costs and staff time caused by the scattershot Right to Know Act requests on providing access to higher education instead of copying 50,000 documents. However, we fully recognize our responsibilities under the law and have always sought to meet them in a reasonable manner.
The Patriot-News doesn’t seem to realize that we also have legal rights and responsibilities to protect both proprietary and the personal information that was sought in these excessive requests. The constitution of our commonwealth mandates that our courts be open to resolve disputes. In this case, the position of The Patriot-News seems to be that, however unreasonable their actions may be, no one has the right to challenge requests by the media.
While I am a strong believer in the First Amendment, I would note that there are other rights established by our Constitution, including the right to due process of law. PHEAA availed itself of its constitutional right to fair adjudication, sought immediate guidance, and has fully complied with the court’s direction in this matter. At the same time, PHEAA was careful to protect our vital enterprise that produces the enormous public benefits and opportunities our citizens expect.
At a time when we read of layoffs and plant closings in central Pennsylvania every week, your unceasing attack on a public enterprise that has added over 600 family-sustaining jobs to the area in the past three years, and has even been praised by other states who are clients of ours, seems misguided and unfair.
RICHARD E. WILLEY is president and CEO of PHEAA.