By Mark Shade | Bucks County Courier Times Staff Writer

Simon Campbell is happy, but worried.

Commonwealth Court has said the Bucks County man can have the salary and benefits information he sought for the professors and employees of the 14 universities in the state higher education system with a Right to Know request. Those universities include California, Kutztown, Indiana, Slippery Rock and West Chester.

However, Judge Bonnie Leadbetter is giving the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties 30 days to decide if it will appeal her decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

If the faculty union decides to appeal and prevails, Campbell said that decision could have a huge negative impact on the public’s access to government information.

“This would basically be saying third parties can decide what they like and don’t like. They can sue ‘requestors,’ sue the agencies, ignore the Office of Open Records completely, and just let the court decide what should be released. It would completely annihilate the open records law in Pennsylvania,” Campbell said.

In addition to the salary and benefit information for the union’s 5,500 faculty members and 350 athletic coaches, Campbell is seeking individual names and job titles and said he plans to post the information on his website, stopteacherstrikes.org.

The union is embroiled in a protracted contract negotiation that has brought it to the brink of a strike, although negotiations this month with the state system have led to some tentative agreements.

Spokeswoman Lauren Gutshall said the union has been preoccupied with contract negotiations and it has “not formally decided” if it will appeal Leadbetter’s decision.

Campbell, who’s a Pennsbury school board member, said Wednesday he’s pleased with Leadbetter’s decision to deny the union’s preliminary injunction, but is concerned the judge didn’t toss the case on jurisdictional grounds.

He believes the union’s complaint should have been directed back to the Office of Open Records.

“(Leadbetter) should have said to the union, ‘You’re not allowed to come to the courts until the Office of Open Records has made a decision,’ ” Campbell said.

The union argued that Campbell should be blocked from getting the names, salaries and benefits of its members because that would reveal personal and private information, including martial status and data on domestic partners and dependent children. The union said making the data public would violate their constitutional rights to privacy.

Leadbetter rejected that claim in her Jan. 11 memorandum opinion.

“The requested injunction would adversely affect the public interest,” she wrote.

The judge also rejected the union’s contention that someone could detect the family structure of union members simply by looking at the kind of health plans to which they’re subscribed.

“For instance, a two-party plan may reflect a married couple, a pair of domestic partners or a single parent and child. A single person may have family coverage because he or she has a support obligation to children who reside exclusively with a former spouse. A person with a spouse and child may elect single-party coverage because the family is covered by the spouse’s plan,” Leadbetter said.

Campbell said he doesn’t disagree with Leadbetter’s argument, but warned that her decision sets a dangerous precedent because it gives the union time to consider an appeal before the case returns to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records.

Additionally, Campbell said he has been concerned that the state open records office has been too quiet in this battle, an allegation denied by the head of that office.

“We’re a quasi-judicial agency. We cannot advocate and we do not have a dog in this fight,” said Terry Mutchler, executive director of the state open records office.
“I’m a fan of keeping our eye on the ball. In essence, Simon won. It was the right decision; a good decision,” she said.

Beyond that, Mutchler said her office has no role in the case, other than to wait for Leadbetter’s 30-day stay to expire or to wait for the conclusion of an appeal, if there is one.

Mutchler declined to speculate about the impact of a possible Supreme Court reversal of the Commonwealth Court’s decision, something Campbell said he’s worried about.

“That doesn’t serve us as noble,” Mutchler said when asked to speculate.