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Like many of his counterparts, Penn State head football coach James Franklin is the highest paid employee of a public institution in his state. Nationwide, according to ESPN, 28 football coaches and 12 basketball coaches are the highest-paid employees of state- or state-affiliated institutions in their states.
Unlike most other states, however, Pennsylvania does not require public disclosure of salaries in a way that makes them completely transparent.
As recently reported by Spotlight PA, Franklin is known to make a guaranteed $7 million a year under his most recent contract extension. Yet his name does not appear on Penn State's list of its 25 highest-paid employees, reporting that is required by state law.
According to Penn State, the law requires reporting only base pay. It considers Franklin's base pay to be $500,000, with $6.5 million in "guaranteed supplemental pay." Several other Penn State football coaches are paid more than $1 million a year, but their names do not appear on the top 25 list because their base pay is less than $662,000 a year, the lowest salary to make the list.
Spotlight PA reviewed documents from Penn State's 2020-2021 tax filings, and discovered that three coaches were among the school's highest-paid employees: Franklin, $7.6 million; former men's basketball coach Patrick Chambers, $2.1 million; and former assistant football coach Brent Pry, now Virginia Tech's head coach, $1.6 million.
Penn State's website noted that the coaches, and highly compensated professionals at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, are paid from funds generated by intercollegiate athletics or health system operations, rather than from tuition revenue or state government appropriations.
But the state Right to Know Law, which covers such disclosures, does not make an exception for that case.
The need for greater disclosure is evident in that both gubernatorial candidates support a bill to clarify reporting requirements -- one introduced by Republican candidate Doug Mastriano -- and extend the mandate from the top 25 earners to the top 200 at Penn State and other state-affiliated schools (University of Pittsburgh, Temple University and Lincoln University).
This is a simple matter of disclosure. The Legislature should update the requirements.