Latest news with #SunshineAct
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Penn State trustees agree to legal training, improved transparency in settlement with Spotlight PA
This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for Talk of the Town, a weekly newsletter of local stories that dig deep, events, and more from north-central PA, at Penn State University's Board of Trustees will complete a training on the state's open meetings law and disclose more information about its closed-door gatherings as part of a settlement with Spotlight PA. The agreement, signed last week, ends a case the newsroom, in partnership with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, brought against the board in December 2023 for alleged violations of the Sunshine Act, the state law mandating transparency from governing bodies. 'The settlement ensures that one of Pennsylvania's most influential institutions will conduct its business with the transparency that taxpayers, students, faculty, and staff deserve,' said Christopher Baxter, CEO and president of Spotlight PA. 'The university's most recent decision to close seven campuses — and the effect it will have on communities across the state — underscores the need for these important reforms.' Neither Penn State nor board leadership responded to a request for comment for this story. Spotlight PA has documented the board's decadelong use of private meetings and practices that may have run afoul of the state's transparency law, including that university leadership met privately with trustees to discuss Penn State's multimillion-dollar budget deficit and to consider naming the football field after former coach Joe Paterno. Internal board communications, previously obtained by the newsroom, revealed that board leadership directed trustees to ask questions during a private session rather than at a public meeting, a request a media law attorney described as a 'gigantic red flag.' Penn State has already altered some of its practices to increase transparency. In October, a committee of top university officials held its first public meeting since 2011. Under the new settlement agreement, every meeting of the executive committee must be publicized on the board's website, and the board must continue to publish the group's meeting agendas. Additionally, according to the settlement, the board will hold a Sunshine Act training for trustees and publicly report which members completed the session. The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records is scheduled to provide the training on Sept. 11, according to the agency's calendar. Incoming trustees will be offered the training starting in 2026. Liz Wagenseller, executive director of the Office of Open Records, said in a statement that the state's open meetings law 'plays a vital role in ensuring the public can see how tax dollars are spent and how government entities operate. The Office of Open Records values every invitation to assist agencies and others subject to the law in better understanding their obligations regarding public meetings. We look forward to working with the Penn State Board of Trustees to help uphold the transparency and accountability the Act is designed to promote.' For years, the Penn State board has met behind closed doors with university officials in 'conference,' a practice allowed under the law for 'any training program or seminar, or any session arranged by State or Federal agencies for local agencies, organized and conducted for the sole purpose of providing information to agency members on matters directly related to their official responsibilities.' The public had limited insight into these gatherings. Under the agreement, the board will disclose the person providing the training and the topic. Similarly, when the trustees hold an executive session, the board will publicly say the reason why and cite the legal exemption that allows for the private meeting. The terms of the settlement will last for five years. Read the full agreement here. 'This is such an important win for transparency in the Commonwealth,' said Paula Knudsen Burke, the Pennsylvania attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press who represented Spotlight PA in the case. 'The university and its board of trustees are ultimately accountable to the people of Pennsylvania, and their business is the public's business. This agreement, which explicitly includes Sunshine Act compliance training, sets a clear expectation that they can no longer hide behind closed doors and executive sessions.' The settlement ends more than 18 months of legal arguments in local court. In October 2023, Spotlight PA and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent the board a letter requesting the trustees 'immediately cease holding improper executive sessions and conferences, advertise and record meeting minutes for all public meetings, and halt the practice of deliberating in secret.' The university's vice president and general counsel, Tabitha Oman, responded that she was 'confident that the Board has taken its official actions and conducted its deliberations in compliance' with the law. During the board's November 2023 meetings in University Park, Spotlight PA witnessed what it believed were potential violations of the open meetings law, prompting the lawsuit in Centre County Court of Common Pleas. After the board's February and May 2024 meetings, the lawsuit was amended to include additional allegations. Throughout the legal process, Penn State argued its trustees followed the law. 'Penn State is a more transparent institution than it was a year and a half ago thanks to Spotlight PA and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press,' said Sarah Rafacz, managing editor of Spotlight PA's State College bureau. 'With this agreement in place, we will see more public disclosures about the business of the trustees than ever before. Our push for transparency will also continue through our tenacious accountability reporting on the university.' In September, Commonwealth Court will tentatively hear arguments in an ongoing case between Penn State and the state Department of Education against Spotlight PA to decide whether university documents the Office of Open Records previously deemed public should be turned over to the newsroom. and help us reinvigorate local news in north-central Pennsylvania at Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability and public-service journalism that gets results. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Penn State trustees plan to vote on campus closures could run afoul of transparency law
This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for Talk of the Town, a weekly newsletter of local stories that dig deep, events, and more from north-central PA, at The Penn State Board of Trustees plans to meet virtually this month to determine the fate of multiple campuses, a decision that will impact the futures of thousands of students and employees. However, the online-only nature of the meeting could run afoul of Pennsylvania's public meetings law, according to legal experts. 'There's nothing in Pennsylvania law that allows a virtual only public meeting under the Sunshine Act,' said Melissa Melewsky, media counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which Spotlight PA is a member. If the meeting's legality is challenged in court, a judge could potentially overturn any decision made at the meeting, she added. Trustees will not consider closures on a campus-by-campus basis when they hold the special meeting, a university spokesperson told Spotlight PA. Instead, they'll vote on a single plan from President Neeli Bendapudi proposing which campuses to shutter. The plan will require a simple majority to pass. Trustees will gather at the University Park campus this week for a series of in-person meetings ahead of graduation festivities, but campus closures are not on the agenda. According to three people with knowledge of the board's schedule, trustees are instead expected to vote on the president's proposal when they meet virtually this month. The trustees held a similar, virtual-only meeting last May to pass the $700 million Beaver Stadium renovation plan. This structure could be problematic, Melewsky told Spotlight PA, as Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act — the law requiring transparency and public access to the meetings of governing bodies like Penn State's board — doesn't expressly allow for virtual-only meetings. However, only a judge can rule whether the law was broken. 'If there's an issue under the Sunshine Act and someone feels the law has been violated, they have a statutory right to pursue the issue in court,' Melewsky said. 'And if a court would find there was a violation, the court could do a number of things, including rescinding any official action taken at that public meeting.' In recent weeks, some trustees have questioned the university's stated reasons and goals behind shutting down locations, the first sign of public fractures among leaders over how Penn State is handling the statewide campus system. Meanwhile, the people whose livelihoods and communities are at risk have grown more vocal. An open letter to trustees asking Penn State to consider options other than closing locations received hundreds of signatures, though it's unclear if board leadership will see it. Andrea Adolph, a Penn State New Kensington professor who authored the piece, said the letter is too long for the board's online public comment portal — the primary way the board gets public input. The website limits submissions to 500 words. Penn State has not allowed in-person or virtual spoken comments during public meetings since 2021. Joy Ramsingh, an attorney who specializes in public meetings law, told Spotlight PA a strong legal argument could be made that the board's conduct exploits loopholes in Pennsylvania transparency statute and is contrary to what the General Assembly intended. 'If you're going to go and you're going to have days of back-to-back meetings and then, five days later, you're doing a virtual meeting just because this is more of a stickier subject, I think you're in hot water as far as the Sunshine Act is concerned,' Ramsingh said. Neither Penn State's Office of Strategic Communications nor its board leaders responded to questions about the public comment procedures or the legality of its virtual meetings. Trustee and faculty pushback The details of the president's proposal to close campuses remain unknown. The university has previously said it will keep at least eight of its locations — Abington, Altoona, Behrend, Berks, Brandywine, Great Valley, Harrisburg, and Lehigh Valley. These campuses have the largest enrollments and are in regions of the state with stable or growing populations. The remaining locations — Beaver, DuBois, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Schuylkill, Scranton, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre, and York — are under review by Bendapudi's administration and could close after the 2026-27 academic year. The university has said it will retain a presence in Northeast Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh region. Until an announcement last month, it was unclear whether the university's governing body would be involved in the decision. A university spokesperson previously declined to say whether or how trustees would be involved, and the president said publicly that closing campuses was an administrative decision she would make. Board support might not be unanimous. In April, a group of five current and former university leaders, including current alumni-elected trustees Ted Brown and Jay Paterno, published an op-ed in calling on the university to delay a decision until other options are considered. The declining commonwealth campus enrollments, often cited in arguments for closure, have flattened in recent years and the statewide system's budget deficit costs Penn State less than 1% of its total budget, the group argued. Paterno told Spotlight PA he would like to see more innovative choices for the campuses beyond staying open or closing. Trustees should be more involved with this plan given the potential impact, he said. 'I would rather be a year late than a day early on a decision this big,' Paterno said. Alice Pope, another co-author of the op-ed and an emerita trustee who cannot vote on a proposal, told Spotlight PA she feels the decision is being rushed. 'Before we take the irreversible step of closing any of our campuses, it seems to me we should first come together as a community to reimagine how we should fulfill our land grant mission in the next hundred years,' Pope wrote in a statement. (Brown did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) The op-ed sparked Adolph, the New Kensington professor, to also write a public letter. 'Until very recently, we were all under the impression that the board was all there, all on board, and perhaps even hired [Bendapudi] to do this work,' she told Spotlight PA. As of May 6, Adolph's letter has received more than 600 signatures, including from alumni-elected trustee Barry Fenchak. The statewide campus system, the letter argues, helps Penn State embody its land grant mission. Closing campuses would backtrack on the promises made to students across the state, the document reads. Penn State's commonwealth system enrolls a more racially diverse group of people, a greater percentage of Pennsylvania residents, and more first-generation college students than University Park, according to data reviewed by Spotlight PA. One signatory of Adolph's letter, Victor Brunsden, told Spotlight PA he wants trustees to reject Bendapudi's closure plan. The administration has not been transparent about how it's making decisions, including the criteria that will determine which locations survive, the Penn State Altoona professor said. First, the university said closures were a financial decision, he said, then the administration said some campuses were not providing students with the 'Penn State experience.' 'That statement implies to me that unless students are able to go to every home football game, unless they are able to be in classes with 1,000 other students at the same time, they are not getting the 'Penn State experience,'' Brunsden said. 'It's insulting to the work that a lot of my colleagues, both faculty and staff, do at the campuses. I think it's insulting to the students, too.' Last week, Nicholas Rowland, the academic trustee on Penn State's board, wrote in that Penn State should not operate like a business. 'Our campuses are not line items to cut or assets to liquidate; they are integral parts of the whole,' Rowland said. 'They are family. And while every family faces difficult seasons, we do not abandon one another when times are hard. We come together.' (Rowland did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) Public comment While these critiques from sitting trustees are notable, Penn State's board has 36 voting members. Dissent from even a dozen trustees would not stop or delay a closure plan. Rejection would be historic. A previous Spotlight PA analysis of trustee voting data between 2019 and 2024 found that the trustees passed nearly 85% of measures without a single oppositional vote. The board voted down just four of the 328 measures it considered during this period, three of which were motions a trustee proposed mid-meeting. The other, in July, was an option for how trustees should be elected to the board. Apart from those votes, most trustees had not recorded a single dissenting vote, the analysis showed. A university spokesperson said the public can provide written comments online ahead of the meeting. Penn State has not allowed in-person or virtual spoken comments during public meetings since 2021. Restricting public comment — through moves such as requiring submission deadlines or not allowing in-person statements — raises free speech questions, Ramsingh said. Limiting speech generally backfires, she said, and draws more attention to the topic. 'The board doesn't have to agree with what the public says,' Ramsingh said. 'But that's the piece that I think a lot of them don't understand: It's that hearing an opinion that is contrary to yours is not an attack. It's this idea that we can come together when we have different opinions. We can disagree. … We're going to do all this together in the same room. But if you try to suppress that, this is like trying to drown a fire out with kerosene.' Adolph said her open letter is exactly the kind of statement that the trustees should hear in person. Otherwise, there's no way to ensure the trustees receive that perspective, she said. Spotlight PA, in partnership with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, sued the trustees in December 2023 for alleged violations of the Sunshine Act. The suit — which was amended to include additional allegations following the board's February and May 2024 meetings — argues the trustees illegally conducted public business in private. The case is ongoing in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas. SUPPORT THIS JOURNALISM and help us reinvigorate local news in north-central Pennsylvania at Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability and public-service journalism that gets results. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.
Washington Post
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
D.C. Council pulls the shades on sunshine in government
Back in 2004, before one of the D.C. Council's pre-legislative-session private 'breakfast meetings,' WTOP's Mark Segraves and I — wearing my Post columnist hat — planted ourselves in Linda Cropp's conference room until Cropp, the council chair, pleaded with and finally ordered us to leave. After months of journalists' repeated efforts to penetrate the council's closed-to-the-public breakfast sessions, Cropp eventually bowed to the spirit of the city's so-called Sunshine Act, which requires council meetings to be open to the public when any official action is taken. She let journalists in on the calorie-laden legislative get-togethers.
USA Today
09-03-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Does Trump want to end daylight saving time? What to know about the political debate
Does Trump want to end daylight saving time? What to know about the political debate Show Caption Hide Caption Trump and Musk weigh in about daylight savings time Elon Musk ran a unscientific poll on X that revealed how some feel about a proposed end to daylight saving time. Disrupted sleep patterns. Annoying clock resets. Daylight saving time can be a hassle, and politicians have reacted by calling for the ritual to be eliminated. The political debate has been around for decades. Lately, both Elon Musk and Donald Trump have weighed in and legislation is pending in Congress to do away with the twice-yearly time change. More: Could daylight saving time become permanent? See what Donald Trump promised last fall Switching to daylight saving time in the spring and standard time in the fall generates strong opinions, but has proven difficult to change. Here's what to know about the political debate. Does Trump want to end daylight saving time? Trump seemed to come out in favor of doing away with the time change in a December social media post. "The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't!" Trump wrote. "Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation." But on Thursday, Trump seemed less eager to make the change. Addressing the debate while signing executive orders, Trump called daylight saving time "very much a fifty-fifty issue." More: 'Lock the clock': Sen. Rubio makes another bid to make daylight saving time permanent "It's something I can do, but a lot of people like it one way, a lot of people like it the other way," Trump said. Daylight saving time results in the sun rising and setting an hour later in the day. That has implications for morning and evening activities, as Trump noted. "I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people want to have more light earlier because they don't want to take their kids to school in the dark," Trump said. Musk conducts a poll Billionaire Elon Musk jumped into the daylight saving time debate on Wednesday with a poll on X, the social media platform he owns. Musk asked X users what they preferred if the time change is canceled, an hour earlier or later. More: Cancel daylight saving time? Elon Musk stirs debate. More than 1.3 million people responded, with 58% saying later and 42% saying earlier. Where does this stand in Congress? U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., introduced legislation in January to "lock the clock" and end the time change. The legislation would maintain daylight saving time year round. The bill has struggled to attract enough support, though. It cleared the Senate in 2022 but never passed the House. Florida leads the way In 2018, Florida became the first state to pass legislation — the Sunshine Protection Act — to remain on daylight saving time permanently. No more changing clocks forward or back. The Sunshine Act was approved by Scott, who was Florida's governor at the time. What other states have considered this? In 2018, Florida became the first state to pass legislation — the Sunshine Protection Act — to remain on daylight saving time permanently. No more changing clocks forward or back. Almost every state, since 2015, has considered multiple time zone bills, but none of significance passed until 2018, when Florida became the first state to enact legislation to permanently observe DST, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Over the next six years, "20 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, if Congress were to allow such a change, and in some cases, if surrounding states enact the same legislation."
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
How many states have joined Florida to make daylight saving time permanent? See the list
Faster than you can say spring forward, it'll be time to change our clocks. Again. Florida is one of more than dozen states that have been trying for years to stop the annual time changes and stay on daylight saving time permanently. A few states prefer staying on standard time permanently, a switch more easily made since it doesn't require congressional approval and a signature from the president. Here's what to know. Daylight saving time in the U.S. begins on the second Sunday in March, when clocks are moved forward one hour. We switch back to standard time the first Sunday in November. Daylight saving time will start at 2 a.m. March 9, 2025. Countdown Timer Daylight saving time will end 2 a.m. Nov. 2, 2025, when we turn our clocks back one hour and return to standard time. In 2018, Florida became the first state to pass legislation — the Sunshine Protection Act — to remain on daylight saving time permanently. No more changing clocks forward or back. While the Sunshine Act was approved by then-Gov. Rick Scott, it has repeatedly failed to get congressional approval to be implemented. The U.S. Senate passed it in 117th Congress, but the House of Representatives did not and it has never been signed into law by any president. Almost every state, since 2015, has considered multiple time zone bills, but none of significance passed until 2018, when Florida became the first state to enact legislation to permanently observe DST, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Over the next six years, "20 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, if Congress were to allow such a change, and in some cases, if surrounding states enact the same legislation." States wanting to make daylight saving time permanent are: Alabama Colorado Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Oklahoma Kentucky Louisiana Maine Minnesota Mississippi Montana Ohio Oregon South Carolina Tennessee Utah Washington Wyoming "Ditch Daylight Saving Time. Permanent Standard Time lets us sleep later for health, mood, safety, education, economy, environment," said Save Standard Time on X, formerly known as Twitter. Arkansas has introduced a bill to make the state remain permanently on standard time, according to 4029 News. A Massachusetts bill also calls for permanent standard time, but only if two or more neighboring states also make the change, according to 22News. Before he took office Jan. 20, Trump posted on Truth Social: "The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't!" Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. "Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation." Trump has not passed any executive legislation to permanently end daylight saving time. USA TODAY has reached out to the White House for comment. Now a U.S. senator, Scott introduced bipartisan in January of this year — Sunshine Protection Act — to officially 'lock the clock' and end the twice-yearly time change and make daylight saving time the national year-round standard. "I hear from Americans constantly that they are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year — it's an unnecessary, decades-old practice that's more of an annoyance to families than benefit to them. ➤ 'Stupid practice!' Sen. Marco Rubio renews push to stop changing time twice a year "I'm excited to have President Trump back in the White House and fully on board to LOCK THE CLOCK so we can get this good bill passed and make this common-sense change that will simplify and benefit the lives of American families.' Federal law allows a state to exempt itself from observing daylight saving time, upon action by the state legislature, but does not allow the permanent observance of daylight saving time. Simply put, states can choose to stay on standard time all year. But if they want to stay on daylight saving time all year, that requires congressional approval and the signature of the president. Daylight saving time would mean later sunrises and sunsets, which means more time for outdoor activities in the evenings. Standard time would mean earlier sunrises and sunsets, which some argue increases safety in the mornings for school children and is more in line with biological circadian rhythms. Should we end the practice of changing our clocks twice a year? If so, which should be permanent, daylight saving time or standard time? Let us know your preference. Two states, Arizona — with the exception of the Navajo Nation — and Hawaii do not recognize daylight saving time. They remain on standard time all year. Also remaining on standard time permanently are the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Daylight savings permanent? States not wanting Standard time change
