close

Audit needed of PHEAA

3 min read

Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner should waste no time launching a full-blown audit of the spending practices of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, given recent revelations about the $860,000 it spent on eight fancy retreats in a five-year period. But if Wagner’s suspicions weren’t aroused enough by news reports of multitudinous spending abuses – such as a $128 tuxedo rental and thousands spent on spa treatments, golf outings and fine dining – the deal should be sealed with what happened Thursday.

Employing a tactic that threw up enough red flags to prompt Wagner to jump in the fastest vehicle in the state fleet and speeding to PHEAA headquarters, the student loan agency’s employees videotaped news camera crews and others, including citizen activist Gene Stilp of inflatable pink pig fame, as they attended a PHEAA meeting. The topic of that meeting was discussion of ways to reign in PHEAA’s lax travel policy and the way it permitted board members and guest to throw around money like drunken sailors.

Why in the world would PHEAA pay its employees to videotape the meeting anyway? Were they afraid some television station news crew, a gaggle of reporters or activists like Stilp might stage some mad rush to the head table, like in a battle scene from the Mel Gibson movie “Braveheart”?

PHEAA spokesman Keith New predictably downplayed the fact that people who either wanted to see what was going on or had to report on it as part of their job were dogged by camera-wielding PHEAA employees. While acknowledging that PHEAA instructed some employees to film the meeting and related press conferences, particularly those held by demonstrators, New blamed the in-your-face stuff on an overdose of zeal.

That’s not a plausible explanation, nor does it explain why PHEAA needed to so closely monitor its critics and the press in the first place. Even Donna Cooper, who serves as policy director for Gov. Ed Rendell, was victimized by PHEAA’s would-be Woody Allens and Spike Lees.

“The last thing any public agency should do is create any reason for people to feel intimidated to be on the premises,” Cooper said. She also says everyone at 2,600-employee PHEAA was “on edge” because of all the publicity over retreat-related spending sprees.

The last time we saw a local public agency be this “on edge,” blocking access to information and trying to intimidate critics, it was the Fayette County Housing Authority, circa 1992. Outside intervention by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development led to an audit, which in turn led to the former executive director going to federal prison.

Start probing for the truth at PHEAA as soon as possible, Mr. Wagner. And while you’re at it, ask Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett to join you. Chances are pretty good that you’re going to uncover some very interesting things.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $4.79/week.

Subscribe Today