Before I do any more analysis of the Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010, here are the parts that everyone is interested in. The data, which is for fiscal year 2008-2009, comes from pdf pages 38, 40 and 63 of the report.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Fraud: Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010
Bill Schackner at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an update this morning to his report yesterday on the Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010.And Penn State Bullshit Artist Geoff Rushton lawyers-up,
There is a long check list on the Form 990 for tax year 2008, which forms the bulk of the Right-To-Know Report, for determining what schedules an organization must fill out. Question 28 concerns financial arrangements between the organization and, colloquially speaking, influential people in the organization.
are is at least two individuals one person who meet meets the third threshold. Old Main lists Graham as an officer and Joe Paterno as a key employee (p. 40) Now and Graham's wife Sandra is an English prof at the University and Joe's son Jay is an assistant football coach. Both Sandra falls within the definition of family member from the glossary of terms in the instruction for Form 990,
either of them earning she earns less than $10k a year. It's a sure bet that at a minimum these people Graham's wife should have been listed on Schedule L, Part IV.
With thirty-two trustees, five officers-actually six but Graham's both an officer and a trustee-five key employees and the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows how many family members, there's a very good chance that the list on Schedule L, Part IV if filled out correctly would be very long.
Why did Old Main neglect to complete Schedule L, Part IV. Graham just doesn't s like any transparency and my guess is that he and his Old Main brain trust hoped that no one would notice. In fact, they did their best to keep the report out of public view by posting it with no fanfare on an obscure place in on their Web site and in a scanned pdf which would likely be bypassed by search engines. Further, unlike Pitt, which did complete this schedule, Penn State doesn't have to file their Form 990 with the IRS so there really isn't much of a consequence for them fraudulently filling it out should they be caught , beyond whatever small potatoes sanctions the Commonwealth's Right-To-Know law imposes. So they figured that cheating was worth the gamble.
[Corrected:5/30/10 9:52 pm]
Technorati Tags: Penn State, Right-To-Know, cheating, Spanier, Paterno
Penn State's tax filing did not identify officers or trustees of the university who have relatives employed by Penn State. Pitt provided that information in its tax filing, citing revised IRS rules this year.Let's take a closer look at this issue through the wool that Geoff is trying to pull over our eyes.
Geoff Rushton, a Penn State spokesman, said Friday that school trustees and a consultant who worked with Penn State on its right-to-know filing authorized alternative language. Later Friday, he said an attorney for the university would be taking a second look at the requirement to be sure.
The language used in Penn State's filing was:
"The University knows of no significant transactions between it and any person described in the question other than transactions in the normal course of its activities. All such transactions are conducted at arm's length for good and sufficient consideration and the University believes that the terms and conditions of any such transactions have been fair and reasonable."
There is a long check list on the Form 990 for tax year 2008, which forms the bulk of the Right-To-Know Report, for determining what schedules an organization must fill out. Question 28 concerns financial arrangements between the organization and, colloquially speaking, influential people in the organization.
28 During the tax year, did any person who is a current or former officer, director, trustee, or key employee:Penn State answered yes to Question 28 b (p. 6; All pages are pdf pages in the RTK Report.) . Hence there is no doubt that such individuals exist, yet they didn't complete Schedule L, Part IV (p. 47), because, "The University knows of no significant transactions between it and any person described in the question other than transactions in the normal course of its activities." This rationale does not pass the smell test The instructions for for Schedule L is as clear as day on this issue.
a Have a direct business relationship with the organization (other than as an officer, director, trustee, or
employee), or an indirect business relationship through ownership of more than 35% in another entity
(individually or collectively with other person(s) listed in Part VII, Section A)? If "Yes, " complete Schedule L,
Part IV .
b Have a family member who had a direct or indirect business relationship with the organization? If "Yes,"
complete Schedule L, Part IV .
c Serve as an officer, director, trustee, key employee, partner, or member of an entity (or a shareholder of a
professional corporation) doing business with the organization? If "Yes," complete Schedule L, Part IV. .
Report in Part IV business transactions for which payments were made during the organization’s tax year between the organization and an interested person, if such payments exceeded the reporting thresholds described below, and regardless of when the transaction was entered into by the parties. The “ordinary course of business” exception to reporting business relationships on Form 990, Part V, line 2, does not apply for purposes of Schedule L.Here are the reporting thresholds from the instructions.
In general, an organization must report business transactions in Part IV with respect to an interested person if: (1) all payments during the tax year between the organization and the interested person exceeded $100,000; (2) all payments during the tax year from a single transaction between such parties exceeded the greater of $10,000 or 1% of the filing organization’s total revenues; (3) compensation payments during the tax year by the organization to a family member of certain persons exceeded $10,000; or (4) in the case of a joint venture with an interested person, the organization has invested $10,000 or more in the joint venture, whether or not during the tax year.It is easy enough to see that there
Unless specified otherwise, the family of an individual includes only his or her spouse, ancestors, brothers and sisters (whether whole or half blood), children (whether natural or adopted), grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and spouses of brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren(;)and it is hard to imagine that
With thirty-two trustees, five officers-actually six but Graham's both an officer and a trustee-five key employees and the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows how many family members, there's a very good chance that the list on Schedule L, Part IV if filled out correctly would be very long.
Why did Old Main neglect to complete Schedule L, Part IV. Graham just doesn't s like any transparency and my guess is that he and his Old Main brain trust hoped that no one would notice. In fact, they did their best to keep the report out of public view by posting it with no fanfare on an obscure place in on their Web site and in a scanned pdf which would likely be bypassed by search engines. Further, unlike Pitt, which did complete this schedule, Penn State doesn't have to file their Form 990 with the IRS so there really isn't much of a consequence for them fraudulently filling it out should they be caught , beyond whatever small potatoes sanctions the Commonwealth's Right-To-Know law imposes. So they figured that cheating was worth the gamble.
[Corrected:5/30/10 9:52 pm]
Technorati Tags: Penn State, Right-To-Know, cheating, Spanier, Paterno
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Friday, May 28, 2010
It looks Like I'm Not the Only One to Notice That....
....this year's Right-To-Know report is deficient. From today, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
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The tax filing provided by Penn State did not identify employees who are related to officers, trustees or other leaders of the university. Geoff Rushton, a Penn State spokesman, said Friday afternoon he was attempting to ascertain why the information was not included.Let's see what sort of explanation Penn State Bullshit Artist Geoff Rushton comes up with.
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Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010 Now Searchable
[UPDATE:The Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2011 is here.]
I finished converting the scanned pdf of the Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010 to a searchable one and I've uploaded it to Scribd. You can use the search box at the lower right of the embedded viewer below the jump to search the document.
However, it you go to the Scribd Web site you find that the default viewing preference is HTML5 which does not yet have a search capability. If you want to search the document at the Web site go to your account settings and under General, scroll down to Reading and remove the check from in front of "Display documents in HTML mode (recommended)".
Here it is.
I finished converting the scanned pdf of the Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010 to a searchable one and I've uploaded it to Scribd. You can use the search box at the lower right of the embedded viewer below the jump to search the document.
However, it you go to the Scribd Web site you find that the default viewing preference is HTML5 which does not yet have a search capability. If you want to search the document at the Web site go to your account settings and under General, scroll down to Reading and remove the check from in front of "Display documents in HTML mode (recommended)".
Here it is.
Penn State's 2010 Right-To-Know Report is Deficient
I'm still working on converting the scanned pdf to a searchable one. Hence a full analysis is a ways off, but as I was going over the filing last night I noticed at least one deficiency in the report.
On page 4, Old Main answered yes to Question 28 b: During the tax year, did any person who is a current or former officer director, trustee or key employee have a family member who had a direct or indirect business relationship with the organization? By answering yes, the University is required to fill out schedule L which details the relationship. They didn't. For example, the salary of Sandra Spanier, Graham's wife, must be reported on Schedule L. It wasn't. I'm not clear on the concept of key employee, but JoPa would seem to fit the bill. If that's true, then JayPa's salary must be reported on Schedule L. But nothing was reported on Schedule L...Nada...
I'm sure I'll have more to say once my conversion project is complete.,
Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State's 2010 Right-To-Know Report, Sandra Spanier, Jay Paterno
On page 4, Old Main answered yes to Question 28 b: During the tax year, did any person who is a current or former officer director, trustee or key employee have a family member who had a direct or indirect business relationship with the organization? By answering yes, the University is required to fill out schedule L which details the relationship. They didn't. For example, the salary of Sandra Spanier, Graham's wife, must be reported on Schedule L. It wasn't. I'm not clear on the concept of key employee, but JoPa would seem to fit the bill. If that's true, then JayPa's salary must be reported on Schedule L. But nothing was reported on Schedule L...Nada...
I'm sure I'll have more to say once my conversion project is complete.,
Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State's 2010 Right-To-Know Report, Sandra Spanier, Jay Paterno
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Penn State's 2010 Right-To-Know Report is Available
Old Main posted this year's Right-To-Know report sometime today. Unlike last year, I didn't have any trouble finding it this year, since they put exactly where they put last year's report. However, they still posted a scanned pdf which I'll convert to a searchable pdf and post at scribd when I get sometime. The Form 990 changed this year and it is much more detailed than last year; it looks like there might be more interesting tidbits this year than last. ...more once I've had a chance to study it.
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Last Time We Encountered Penn State Nutritionist Penny Kris-Etherton....
...she was, with the help of The Penn State Propaganda Shop, touting the health benefits of chocolate without any mention that her research on chocolate had been funded by Hershey's. She and The Penn State Propaganda Shop, at a minimum, had an ethical obligation to reveal her funding source, since, as I noted in another blog post, research has shown that industry funded nutrition research tends to be biased in favor of the funding industry.
Well, today Kris-Etherton and The Penn State Propaganda Shop are back, this time promoting the health benefits of Pistachio nuts and they've met the minimum conflict-of-interest standard with the following information at the bottom of the press release, "The Western Pistachio Association supported this work."
That's a baby step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough.
While technically truthful, the press release is misleading in a way that can only be construed to be deliberate.
Let's take a closer look at the piece from The Penn State Propaganda Portal. Here's the lede,
Now compare this with the headline on the press release
An honest headline would be "Pistachios increase antioxidants in the blood", but that wouldn't sell as many nuts as "Pistachios offer multiple health benefits.", would it?
Penn State pimping for industry since 1855.
Technorati Tags: Penn State, conflict of interest, pistachios, Kris-Etherton
Well, today Kris-Etherton and The Penn State Propaganda Shop are back, this time promoting the health benefits of Pistachio nuts and they've met the minimum conflict-of-interest standard with the following information at the bottom of the press release, "The Western Pistachio Association supported this work."
That's a baby step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough.
While technically truthful, the press release is misleading in a way that can only be construed to be deliberate.
Let's take a closer look at the piece from The Penn State Propaganda Portal. Here's the lede,
Pistachio nuts, eaten as part of a healthy diet, can increase the levels of antioxidants in the blood of adults with high cholesterol, according to an international team of nutritional scientists.In paragraphs six and seven, we are told that
"Currently, studies on antioxidants do not show major benefits," said Kris-Etherton. "...The antioxidant story is very disappointing to the scientific community."Kris-Etherton and her co-workers found that adding pistachios to an otherwise healthy diet increases the presence of antioxidants in the blood, but there is no evidence of a health benefit from antioxidant.
The reason for the disappointment is that studies on specific antioxidants currently do not show health benefits..
Now compare this with the headline on the press release
Pistachios offer multiple health benefitsand the second paragraph
"Our previous study showed the benefits of pistachios in lowering lipids and lipoproteins, which are a risk factor for heart disease," said Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition, Penn State. "This new study shows an additional effect of pistachios so now there are multiple health benefits of eating pistachios."In paragraph two, Kris-Etherton contradicts what she says in paragraphs six and seven. And in paragraphs six and seven, she throws up a bunch of flak, which I cutout, to distract from the basic fact that there are no known health benefits from antioxidants.
An honest headline would be "Pistachios increase antioxidants in the blood", but that wouldn't sell as many nuts as "Pistachios offer multiple health benefits.", would it?
Penn State pimping for industry since 1855.
Technorati Tags: Penn State, conflict of interest, pistachios, Kris-Etherton
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010
A Mea Culpa...and StateCollege.com
I've been a baaaaaaaaaaaad blogger....sorry about that. The demands of real life can erode the time one devotes to the cyber life. Anyway, I hope with the free time that summer brings I'll be able to reverse the trend...we'll see.
In the meantime, if you're looking for something to read check out StateCollege.com. The outfit is making an attempt to become a real news organization with the hires of Terry Casey, a former Collegian editor, and Adam Smeltz, who cut his teeth at the CDT before moving on to the the Camden, New Jersey Courier-Post. Adam did a great job of covering the University while he was at the CDT and I, for one, missed that reporting while he was at the Courier-Post . It's good to see him return to the Centre Region and I hope that he causes great discomfort for Old Main in his new job.
I've added a link to StateCollege.com over at the right under local news. Until their boss gives them an RSS feed that works, keep you can stay up to date via Adam's tweets. Go check out Adam's work.
Technorati Tags: Housekeeping note, StateCollege.com
In the meantime, if you're looking for something to read check out StateCollege.com. The outfit is making an attempt to become a real news organization with the hires of Terry Casey, a former Collegian editor, and Adam Smeltz, who cut his teeth at the CDT before moving on to the the Camden, New Jersey Courier-Post. Adam did a great job of covering the University while he was at the CDT and I, for one, missed that reporting while he was at the Courier-Post . It's good to see him return to the Centre Region and I hope that he causes great discomfort for Old Main in his new job.
I've added a link to StateCollege.com over at the right under local news. Until their boss gives them an RSS feed that works, keep you can stay up to date via Adam's tweets. Go check out Adam's work.
Technorati Tags: Housekeeping note, StateCollege.com
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