The Call Of The Wild

The Pennsylvania Legislature is concealing with whom lawmakers and staff met, and why, in records on how it spends its roughly $360 million annual budget, two news organizations reported Thursday.

Thousands of pages of financial records turned over in response to public records requests by The Caucus and Spotlight PA contained vague descriptions of expenses or redactions that made it impossible to see their purpose.

In defending their rationale for keeping the information secret, legislative lawyers in the nation’s largest full-time Legislature cited the speech and debate clause in the state Constitution, The Caucus and Spotlight PA reported.

The lawyers say that the clause protects lawmakers’ ability to speak and debate freely, and that revealing the information would “interfere with the Legislature’s independence.” But good-government advocates say the speech and debate clause was intended to allow lawmakers to speak freely in floor debate and other official proceedings.

“Seems like a huge stretch,’’ said David Cuillier, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Arizona and president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. Lawmakers, he added, need “to buck up, have some backbone and be accountable.”

The news organizations’ requests covered all of the Legislature’s expenses, except salaries and benefits, from 2017 through 2019. The nearly 3,000 pages of records the House and Senate have released so far included information about staff travel, meals, lodging, conferences and professional training. Dozens of redactions blacked out information about whom they and their staff spent money to meet with, and the purpose of those meetings.

For instance, four charges of $95.25 each for staff aides who stayed overnight in Pittsburgh blacked out wording that said who they met and on what sort of legislation. A $265.49 lodging and parking charge in January 2018 for a one-time top Senate aide concealed the kind of meetings he attended in Washington. The Caucus and Spotlight PA are appealing the redactions.

Pennsylvania’s Legislature has largely exempted itself from the state public records law, although financial records are among the few items that legislators are required to make public.

The Legislature has successfully invoked the speech and debate clause in the past to shield records such as correspondence about deliberations. But it has not routinely been used to block records detailing how and why the House and Senate spend taxpayer money.

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• All senators except for Emilly Anderson, Jonathan Benner and John Enerah attended the meeting. Their absences were excused. Student Government Association Updates February 27

• SGA members voted to approve a resolution of support for Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to establish the Nellie Bly scholarship program for Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education students.

• SGA announced the winners of the PSECU-SGA scholarships.

• The budget and finance committee plans to finish evaluating budgets by March 25, according to Ramses Ovalles, vice president of budget and finance.

• SGA held a successful leadership banquet, according to Seth Edwards, vice president of external affairs

• The College of Education and Human Services is planning to launch a magazine, according to Jessica Munoz.

Jonathan Bergmueller Editor-in-Chief

It feels like every other week I discuss transparency in this column. It is not a matter of obsession or a matter of blowing matters out of proportion. Quite the contrary: Everywhere in our modern world, there are issues of clarity and straightforwardness with our political and professional conduct.

For the past two weeks, the front page of The Slate has shown news about the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Chancellor, Daniel “Chancellor Dan” Greenstein.

The words vague and convoluted strike me as oxymoronic, but they are best used to describe how this system redesign has been presented to the people it is intended to serve.

During Greenstein’s fall presentation, professors questions for clarification on what is actually happening in the PASSHE redesign, went unanswered as Greenstein struggled to break down the process in a way everyone could understand. Meanwhile, he emphasized the urgency of changes he wanted to make.

The issue of communication has only worsened this spring, when Greenstein sent directives, complete with goals and deadlines, to all PASSHE school presidents to help alleviate fiscal problems the state system is experiencing. To some, he presented these directives as “mandates” yet to others he said they were “suggestions.”

As you may have read on A2, Kara Laskowski, SU’s chapter president of Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, asked Greenstein for consistency.

In response, Greenstein cited a subjectivist’s approach to literary theory where the reader can bring their own interpretation to an author’s work. This is acceptable in an introductory English course where you can argue if Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about mental health stigmas or entrenched misogyny. Not when you are a political figurehead using different language to sway different groups.

Top-down approaches to administration rarely work. By rule of thumb, different people in different places at different times have different needs that must be observed and accommodated when finding solutions to problems. This is why local administrations — and PASSHE school administrations, for example — need to wield power to deal with the financial burdens in ways that work for them, not for PASSHE or for Greenstein. The worst part about the PASSHE System Redesign, however, is how SU’s student body has been sequestered — set apart from the discussions. To a degree, one can admire an effort on the part of the adults at this university to keep students removed, just as a parent might not want a young child to worry about a sick family pet. However, at the same time, these conversations impact students the most. The universities do not serve PASSHE, or President Laurie Carter, or Greenstein. They serve the students.

What I have seen is a complete lack of student in

volvement at Greenstein’s forums. Some of this can be chalked up to student apathy, but part of this is a lack of invitation and accessibility to these forums.

Last Thursday, Greenstein spoke to a crowd of mostly faculty and staff in Old Main Chapel from 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. This is a time many students and professors have regularly scheduled classes, and as a result many were unable to attend the forum. Additionally, the student body at large received no formal invitation to the forum. Students who had heard about the forum second-hand had no clue if they could come share their perspectives, and students who did not hear will have had no chance to weigh in their perspectives. Think about the message that sends.

Mind you, Greenstein did meet with members of SU’s Student Government Association that afternoon. But the student body should have been encouraged (and permitted, if they were not) to attend Greenstein’s forum.

Greenstein is attempting to pitch a massive and speedy overhaul to PASSHE schools without dwelling on the details. And it seems whenever members of the faculty try to pin him down on the details, he skirts around their questions with convoluted language. The goal should be to explain the PASSHE redesign so a middle-schooler could understand it, not in a way that confuses and worries well-educated adults.

Finally, it seems as if Greenstein is focusing on selling his plans to the people who will make or break his implementation, and not necessarily the people who will be impacted the most by the “tough decisions that need to be made right now this minute.”

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A message from the SU Financial Aid Office:

Free FAFSA Completion Workshops

In order to meet the May 1 PHEAA State Grant deadline, you must file your FAFSA for the 2020-2021 academic year as soon as possible. You can go to fafsa.gov to file the FAFSA necessary for the fall 2020, spring 2021 and summer 2020 semesters. If you are a Pennsylvania resident, filing by May 1, could qualify you for a PHEAA State Grant. This is free money that does not have to be repaid. Also, the earlier you file the FAFSA, the better chance you have of possibly obtaining internal federal funding from Shippensburg University.

For the 2020/21 FAFSA, it will ask for you and your parents’ 2018 income information. We highly recommend utilization of the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to import you and your parents’ 2018 income directly onto the FAFSA.

We will be emailing students with outstanding document requirements early in the spring semester. Please be sure to check your SHIP email daily.

Returning students will be packaged with financial aid awards after the commencement of spring 2020 when final grades have posted. Packaging should occur in late May or early June for returning students who have a 20/21 FAFSA on file and all document requirements are satisfied.

If you do not have a 20/21 FAFSA on file or you have not complied with our requests for documentation, we will be unable to package your financial aid.