PHEAA needs housecleaning
It’s time for a complete housecleaning at the free-spending Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, whose legislator-laden board of directors has taken lavish spending to dizzying new heights. From 2000 to 2005, the agency that gets $500 million a year in state money and is charged with providing grants and loans to college students has spent $768,000 on eight retreats to fancy resorts where no expense was spared. The spending covered bar bills, golf outings and spa treatments.
But don’t ask PHEAA for a list of the names of the business clients who were wined and dined at events the agency terms crucial to its ability to compete in the student loan market. In an egregious abuse of accountability, those aren’t being released under the guise of “trade secrets.”
We fail to see what taking a business client to The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, the Meadowood Napa Valley in California of the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa here in Fayette County has to do with helping a struggling college student get money to pay for his or her higher education.
But we’d be willing to bet that the state legislators who predominate on PHEAA’s 20-member board did plenty during the 2005 retreat at Nemacolin, where 50 people rang up a tab of $135,638. That included $47,000 for meals over three days, bar tabs of more than $10,000, more than $9,000 for spa treatments and nearly $9,000 for golf outings.
Someone please tell us what any of those things has to do with PHEAA making it possible for students to achieve higher education. From our perch, it’s far more likely that these resort vacations, which is what they really are, are yet another reward for legislators for pushing state money PHEAA’s way. Other than making sure the cash skids in Harrisburg remain thoroughly greased, is there any reason that legislators comprise the vast majority of PHEAA’s governing board?
As details about PHEAA’s irresponsible spending continue being unearthed, you now know why the agency forced three news organizations to go to state court to obtain access to the information, necessitating a 19-month legal battle that shouldn’t have had to be fought. Because of the Commonwealth’s weak Open Records Law, this “make ’em pay in court” tactic would probably effectively block an average citizen from getting the information.
Even PHEAA knows what it did was wrong. Now that those three news organizations have shined a bright light on the operation, a PHEAA spokeswoman says, “There won’t be any more” fancy resort gatherings.
That’s not enough. Wholesale changes are required to teach PHEAA a lesson. Those should start with removing all state legislators from the board, where they can’t engage in such hanky panky in the future.