OOR chief in cross fire over Penn State's ability to keep secrets.
November 22, 2011 Right to Know Law
Terry Mutchler, director of the Pa. Office of Open Records, says the Penn State scandal… (CAROLYN KASTER / Associated…)
The Pennsylvania State University child sex-abuse scandal has riveted the nation since criminal charges were announced Nov. 5. Requests for records that might reveal what school officials knew, and when, have placed the state's Office of Open Records in the cross fire - especially because Penn State, as a state-related and not state-run university, is exempt from the open-records law. On Monday, the office's executive director, Terry Mutchler, answered questions from The Philadelphia Inquirer's Amy Worden. Excerpts follow.
Question: What is the Office of Open Records?
Mutchler: We are an independent agency whose role is to enforce the state's Right to Know Law. If an agency denies a [citizen's] request for records, the requester has a right to appeal to the office. Our decisions are binding. Since 2009, we issued nearly 4,000 "Final Determinations" . . . and handled over 160 cases in court. The office has a $1 million budget and a staff of 10. My salary is $121,000.
Q: Why should taxpayers trust your office? Aren't you an arm of the same state government that for years had some of the most secretive records laws in the nation?
Mutchler: Given Pennsylvania's historic culture of secrecy, it's a legitimate taxpayer concern. I prefer when citizens scrutinize government . . . and decide if they can trust us. We have taken very difficult stands: We ruled against Gov. Rendell when a news organization sought his e-mails; we have ruled against Gov. Corbett on release of his schedule. The courts continually uphold us.
Q: Can Gov. Corbett fire you?
Mutchler: Built-in protections exist. The executive director has a six-year term to overlap governors; the director can serve no more than two six-year terms and cannot run for office or accept a political appointment for one year after service ends.
Q: Explain how the burden of proof changed in the 2008 law.
Mutchler: Previously, most records were presumed to be off-limits to citizens. If a citizen asked a township, school district, police department, or state agency for a record, the citizen had the "burden to prove" why it was public. . . . Now, every record of a local or commonwealth agency, state-owned, or state-affiliated agency is considered public, and the government has the job of proving why it should not be public.
Q: How has the Penn State scandal affected your office?
Mutchler: This has drawn more calls than any other case in our three-year history . . . Lawmakers, citizens, and reporters want to know if they can get e-mails, police reports, texts — and if not, why not, since PSU receives a quarter of a billion tax dollars.
Q: You have characterized Penn State's exemption as "luxurious" and said PSU "enjoys a privilege" other similar universities don't. Have you gotten any reaction to these characterizations?
Mutchler: I have heard a lot about those remarks in government quarters and from the public. . . . Nearly every similarly situated university in the U.S. is fully subject to states' open-records laws. I will leave to your readers whether this rare exemption for a tax-dollar-receiving entity is luxurious.
Q: How did Penn State and the other state-related schools get exempted? Did the schools lobby for that? What were their arguments?
Mutchler: I was serving as assistant Illinois attorney general when this law was drafted. Because of my national work with open records, I was asked to review it. I expressed concerns about this exemption, but candidly, my biggest concern was to ensure that the legal presumption of openness was embedded in the law and that there was an independent review agency. . . . This exemption was achieved properly in the sense that those involved lobbied and successfully argued why they should be exempt.
Q: Tell us about your favorite right-to-know records requests so far.
Mutchler: The funnier ones include . . . a citizen who asked for his own autopsy report. The coroner denied the request, stating that autopsy reports are not public — as opposed to saying the record doesn't exist as the man was alive. And a fellow who wanted a police report begging to know "who shot me?"
Q: You were a reporter. Do you think this makes government officials trust you less?
Mutchler: Reporters don't trust me because I am a government official, and government colleagues don't trust me because I was a reporter.
The Pennsylvania State University child sex-abuse scandal has riveted the nation since criminal charges were announced Nov. 5. Requests for records that might reveal what school officials knew, and when, have placed the state's Office of Open Records in the cross fire - especially because Penn State, as a state-related and not state-run university, is exempt from the open-records law. On Monday, the office's executive director, Terry Mutchler, answered questions from The Philadelphia Inquirer's Amy Worden. Excerpts follow.
Question: What is the Office of Open Records?
Mutchler: We are an independent agency whose role is to enforce the state's Right to Know Law. If an agency denies a [citizen's] request for records, the requester has a right to appeal to the office. Our decisions are binding. Since 2009, we issued nearly 4,000 "Final Determinations" . . . and handled over 160 cases in court. The office has a $1 million budget and a staff of 10. My salary is $121,000.
Q: Why should taxpayers trust your office? Aren't you an arm of the same state government that for years had some of the most secretive records laws in the nation?
Mutchler: Given Pennsylvania's historic culture of secrecy, it's a legitimate taxpayer concern. I prefer when citizens scrutinize government . . . and decide if they can trust us. We have taken very difficult stands: We ruled against Gov. Rendell when a news organization sought his e-mails; we have ruled against Gov. Corbett on release of his schedule. The courts continually uphold us.
Q: Can Gov. Corbett fire you?
Mutchler: Built-in protections exist. The executive director has a six-year term to overlap governors; the director can serve no more than two six-year terms and cannot run for office or accept a political appointment for one year after service ends.
Q: Explain how the burden of proof changed in the 2008 law.
Mutchler: Previously, most records were presumed to be off-limits to citizens. If a citizen asked a township, school district, police department, or state agency for a record, the citizen had the "burden to prove" why it was public. . . . Now, every record of a local or commonwealth agency, state-owned, or state-affiliated agency is considered public, and the government has the job of proving why it should not be public.
Q: How has the Penn State scandal affected your office?
Mutchler: This has drawn more calls than any other case in our three-year history . . . Lawmakers, citizens, and reporters want to know if they can get e-mails, police reports, texts — and if not, why not, since PSU receives a quarter of a billion tax dollars.
Q: You have characterized Penn State's exemption as "luxurious" and said PSU "enjoys a privilege" other similar universities don't. Have you gotten any reaction to these characterizations?
Mutchler: I have heard a lot about those remarks in government quarters and from the public. . . . Nearly every similarly situated university in the U.S. is fully subject to states' open-records laws. I will leave to your readers whether this rare exemption for a tax-dollar-receiving entity is luxurious.
Q: How did Penn State and the other state-related schools get exempted? Did the schools lobby for that? What were their arguments?
Mutchler: I was serving as assistant Illinois attorney general when this law was drafted. Because of my national work with open records, I was asked to review it. I expressed concerns about this exemption, but candidly, my biggest concern was to ensure that the legal presumption of openness was embedded in the law and that there was an independent review agency. . . . This exemption was achieved properly in the sense that those involved lobbied and successfully argued why they should be exempt.
Q: Tell us about your favorite right-to-know records requests so far.
Mutchler: The funnier ones include . . . a citizen who asked for his own autopsy report. The coroner denied the request, stating that autopsy reports are not public — as opposed to saying the record doesn't exist as the man was alive. And a fellow who wanted a police report begging to know "who shot me?"
Q: You were a reporter. Do you think this makes government officials trust you less?
Mutchler: Reporters don't trust me because I am a government official, and government colleagues don't trust me because I was a reporter.
