PSU filed incorrect financial info to state

Real quick: Penn State University reported false financial information to the Pennsylvania Department of Education last winter, errors that remained public for months and highlight longstanding problems with how the school discloses and handles conflicts of interest.

A little more: The university acknowledged the incorrect filings following a Spotlight PA review of Penn State trustees’ business connections, the trustees’ annual conflict of interest disclosure, and reports the university is required to submit to the state when it receives taxpayer funds from the legislature.

In an email to Spotlight PA, a university spokesperson wrote that the December 2022 report contained “inaccurate information.” A spokesperson later told Spotlight PA the error was caused by the university including 2020 financial data in its 2022 filing.

An analysis of the filings and other university documents also revealed that at least one trustee did not disclose more than $250,000 in income to a related business over three years on university-mandated conflict of interest forms.

Penn State defended the trustee’s lack of disclosure, arguing the trustee was not aware of the transactions and was therefore not in violation of the university’s policy.

The university expects conflicts of interest with trustees because they have business ties, a spokesperson wrote in an email. The school’s approach in such instances, the spokesperson said, is determining “not how to eliminate conflicts, but rather, how conflicts should be appropriately disclosed.”

Read the full story here.

—Wyatt Massey, investigative reporter