Whatever credibility Richard E. Willey, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), may have had went out the window recently when he made the absurd claim in an arbitration hearing that financial information about PHEAA junkets could not be released to the media because it would reveal "trade secrets" to "competitors."
What sort of trade secrets⢠Did our PHEAA board dine on lobster or shrimp⢠Do they prefer Chardonnay or Chablis⢠Perhaps the detailed financials of the PHEAA funfest at the posh Nemacolin Woodlands Resort last year would reveal who played golf and who visited the spa.
The problem is that Willey, like so many in Harrisburg, receives a high-profile public position and is immediately afflicted by an arrogance that makes him believe he is somehow above the people he was elected/selected to serve. Like much of our Imperial Legislature, Willey now thinks and acts as though we the people of Pennsylvania serve him, not the other way around.
The media filed a "Right to Know" action against PHEAA when it refused to provide financial information about the board junkets and other matters. The agency spent $885,000 on lavish "retreats" in 2000 alone; the cumulative expense over the past five years likely is formidable.
As for Willey, he claims making financial information public would be tantamount to giving PHEAA's business strategy to its competitors. Willey told the Patriot-News of Harrisburg: "They don't know how we're entertaining them (the institutions with which PHEAA does business) and how we're thanking them for their business."
This raises the question as to why PHEAA is "thanking" anyone for its business. In most circles that would be considered to be a bribe. Further, it is clearly the public's right to know how and whom PHEAA wines and dines. That way we can judge for ourselves whether the expense is justifiable business or having a good time on the public dime.
And why does PHEAA view anybody as a "competitor"⢠Isn't it supposed to be in the business of serving students and providing financing for those pursuing higher education?
The only "competition" is that good old bureaucrat's compulsion to build his agency bigger and bigger while accruing as much personal power and patronage as possible.
Several things must happen. First, Pennsylvania needs a stronger "Right to Know" law that would open records of agencies such as PHEAA without forcing media organizations to spend large quantities of money on legal fees. Taxpayers, via the media, are entitled to know how much our public institutions are spending, on what and why. It is absurd that this has become a matter for the courts.
Finally, given his complete disregard for the rights of the people, his paucity of empathy for the mission of his agency, and the abuse of PHEAA dollars for unnecessary junketing, the only honorable thing left for Richard Willey to do is to resign and let someone more respectful of the public trust assume leadership.
Lowman S. Henry is chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal.
