Hey, PHEAA- Go Loan Yourself a Conscience

One of the items the Legislature will be taking up in the coming weeks is updating Pennsylvania’s woefully outdated Open Records Law, which will make most documents available to the public upon request. These changes will shift the burden from the person requesting the information to prove why they should be entitled to receive it to the government being required to prove why the records should not be disclosed.

To be fair, I do not believe that every piece of paper that crosses my desk should be disclosed. I have constituents share very personal stories and experiences with me as I attempt to assist them, and I do not believe that those personal details should be available to the general public. There are other exceptions that need to be in place to protect you as a constituent as well as me as a lawmaker. The Legislature should be taking up this improved Open Records Law, which I co-sponsored, very soon.

If you need any reminder as to why such a law is so important, we need look no further than PHEAA, the student loan agency that has become a political hot potato in recent weeks. The whole purpose of a new Open Records Law is to ensure transparency and accountability in the governing process, and if there was ever an agency that desperately needs some transparency and accountability directed its way, it is certainly PHEAA.

The outgoing CEO of PHEAA, Dick Willey, who will receive a salary/bonus combo package of $469,975.00 this year. His pension will be a stomach-churning $370,000.00. And in case you haven’t lost your lunch yet, Dick Willey is just one of 23 high-paid executives over at PHEAA who have also authorized lavish board meetings at swanky resorts and an employee appreciation day at Hershey Park valued at $108,000.00 of our tax dollars.

I don’t know about you, but I’m offended. I’m offended as a member of the General Assembly, I’m offended as a taxpayer, and I’m offended as someone whose monthly student loan payments total more than his mortgage payment. This is a perfect example of someone caught with their hand in the public till, and there is simply no excuse for this sort of garbage. The purpose of PHEAA is to help families send their children to college, not for Dick Willey and his cronies to get fat on the government dime. How many children could have received additional grants or student loan forgiveness if these guys hadn’t been busy sticking the money in their pockets in the form of bonuses?

There are some that say that PHEAA should allow such spending in order to recruit top talent to lure talent away from the private sector. I would respectfully submit that such a theory is quite simply a load of crap. PHEAA has always been a public agency, so anyone coming on board should have known right from the start that it wasn’t a private company. When you’re dealing with taxpayer dollars, you have a solemn obligation to spend them in the best way possible, if you have to spend them at all.

I have co-sponsored several bills that will dramatically reform the governing of PHEAA, because these shoddy excesses simply cannot be allowed to continue unabated. In the meantime, I will continue to push for an updated Open Records Law to ensure that if groups like PHEAA are abusing the public trust, we can identify and end the abuse before the damage is irreparable.