Editorial: Stronger Right-to-Know law should be implemented in Pa.

Before you are two organizations: one with high transparency and one with low…Before you are two organizations: one with high transparency and one with low transparency.

Which is more likely to be covering up wrongdoings? Which is more likely to be making correct decisions?

The answer is obvious: Transparent organizations are better organizations, especially when there are taxpayer dollars at stake. The state should realize this and impel the Board of Trustees and other University officials into compliance with the state’s Right-To-Know law. The exemptions that Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln receive from closer oversight should end.

Currently, state-related schools are not subject to very close scrutiny. The only information they must release is very basic salary, revenue and expense data on yearly IRS 990 forms. On specific expenses or even rationale of University decisions, schools are under no obligation to provide information.

This goes against modern trends in management. Stakeholders in an organization and at a university — donors, taxpayers, employees and students — all benefit when more is known. On virtually all counts, organizational strength improves.

Perhaps most obviously, with more open records, waste is identified more quickly. A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Right-to-Know law request uncovered wasteful spending at the California University of Pennsylvania on items including a now-infamous “light ribbon” at new athletic facilities. Further suspicions about excessive spending led to a state report that led to then-president Angelo Armenti’s termination.

If suspicions of similar behavior existed at Pitt, a Right-to-Know request would not be granted with such expediency. Nor could the state readily audit University behavior beyond the IRS 990.

But transparency isn’t about newspapers trying to find the latest scandal. Work by management theorists, such as Erik Berggren and Rob Bernshteyn of management company SuccessFactors, shows that transparent organizations enjoy higher employee morale. It’s more difficult to get angry or confused by upper levels of management if you can understand their rationale. And with many staff and faculty coming off salary freezes, higher morale wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Yet the most convincing argument for transparency is that in the long run, it leads to better governance. The Penn State scandal and the recent controversy at the University of Virginia involving the abrupt firing and rehiring of university President Teresa Sullivan all stem partially from the same phenomenon: Key decision makers seemed to base decisions on shielding information from the public to protect reputations.

Both schools failed miserably at this goal. As Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Jack Stripling noted while reflecting on these scandals, in the long run, “the truth will come out, and a board is better positioned to deal with uncomfortable truths when they are openly confronted from the beginning.”

So if schools such as Pitt and Penn State are afraid of the public reverberations caused by more information, they should follow this year’s lessons and not wait for the truth to make itself known. If officials are worried disclosure of more specifics regarding funding sources and spending will be controversial, a stronger conversation from the beginning would be the best way to move stakeholders forward together.

Perhaps some security and research expenses should remain undisclosed. And line-by-line budget reviews by millions of eyes would need to be undertaken with a level of understanding. Nobody expects perfection.

But there is no reason for Pitt and Penn State to not at least move closer to more transparency.