Addendum to President Spanier's testimony on Senate Bill 1

Addendum to President Spanier's testimony on Senate Bill 1

Penn State University fully agrees with the need for strict fiscal accountability to the citizens of Pennsylvania, the General Assembly, and the Administration. To this end, we supported the Higher Education Fiscal Information Disclosure Act in 1994 that was championed by Sen. James Rhoades and Rep. Jess Stairs, Chairs of the House and Senate Education Committees.

The Rhoades-Stairs disclosure approach was designed specifically for Pennsylvania's major research universities, and continues to be the most appropriate higher education accountability mechanism. Under this act, state-related universities must report:

-- The academic and administrative budgets for current and prior years including revenue and expenditures;
-- The number of employees by academic rank and number of administrators, and staff;
-- The median and mean salaries of administrators, faculty and staff;
-- The non-salary compensation of administrators, faculty and staff;
-- A statement of the institution's retirement policies;
-- A policy statement on reduction of tuition for employee's family members;
-- Service contracts including legal, instructional, management accounting, architecture, public relations and maintenance;
-- A list of goods and services in excess of $1,000; and
-- A list, by unit, of expenses of travel.

The reports are due within 180 days of the close of each fiscal year. In addition, Penn State posts its reports on a specially designed Public Accountability Web site: http://www.psu.edu/ur/accountability.html . At this site you will find direct links to the University's operating budget, Fact Book, Common Data Set, crime statistics and other data sources for all 24 Penn State locations.