Did anybody else get "Let Your Future Burn Bright This October" regarding estate planning?
I responded that, while I would like to leave money to support Penn State's educational mission, I would not leave money if the Board of Trustees has any control whatsoever in how it is spent. I cited Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini's opinion as to the Board's handling of the NCAA sanctions:
“The majority [of the court’s judges] appears to arrive at this outcome because it is bewildered, as I am, by how the Board of Trustees of PSU could have approved or allowed to be executed a “Consent Decree” involving the expenditure of $60 million of PSU funds when the Consent Decree specifically states that the matter “ordinarily would not be actionable by the NCAA.” If, as the majority suggests, the NCAA did not have jurisdiction over conduct because it did not involve the regulation of athletics, then the expenditure of those funds is problematic, given that PSU is a non-profit corporation as well as being tax-exempt as a charitable organization, and that Boards of Directors of non-profit charitable corporations have a fiduciary duty to ensure that funds are only used for matters related to its charitable purpose – in this case, the students of PSU. See 15 Pa. C.S. §5712. Moreover, the majority position is understandable given the lax supervision by those responsible for insuring that non-profit and charitable organizations operate as non-profit and charitable organizations as well as their failure to take action against Boards of Directors and Officers who use funds of a non-profit and/or charitable entity to pay funds that they are not legally obligated to pay and/or expend funds not related to their charitable purpose or who no longer act as a charity. See Zampogna v. Law Enforcement Health Benefits, Inc., 81 A.3d 1043, 1047 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013).”
If the Board is going to disburse money in this manner, then I am not going to provide it with more money. If on the other hand I can give money, or leave money, to a specific department or program (e.g. Paterno Fellowship) in whose management the Board has no say, that is another matter.
Another issue is that the entire Board as constituted in March 2012, minus one honorable exception who distanced himself from this action, published that the Board (Nov. 2011) fired Joe Paterno for "failure of leadership," a phrase it used twice. Keith Masser and Kenneth Frazier testified later in depositions (Corman and McCord vs. NCAA) that Paterno had been fired solely for public relations reasons. Masser testified, “The decision to remove coach Paterno had nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn’t done. It was based upon the distraction of having him on the sidelines would have caused the university and the current football team harm.”
I did not go to the U.S. Military Academy but this seems to put the entire March 2012 Board (minus the honorable exception) into the "lie... or tolerate those who do" category of the Honor Code, which means that the Board that fired Paterno and then said it was for "failure of leadership" did not meet the standards the USMA demands from 18 year old cadets.
The Board, as currently led, has taken no identifiable actions to correct its past mistakes or to apologize to the Paterno family and Penn State community for those actions.
I responded that, while I would like to leave money to support Penn State's educational mission, I would not leave money if the Board of Trustees has any control whatsoever in how it is spent. I cited Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini's opinion as to the Board's handling of the NCAA sanctions:
“The majority [of the court’s judges] appears to arrive at this outcome because it is bewildered, as I am, by how the Board of Trustees of PSU could have approved or allowed to be executed a “Consent Decree” involving the expenditure of $60 million of PSU funds when the Consent Decree specifically states that the matter “ordinarily would not be actionable by the NCAA.” If, as the majority suggests, the NCAA did not have jurisdiction over conduct because it did not involve the regulation of athletics, then the expenditure of those funds is problematic, given that PSU is a non-profit corporation as well as being tax-exempt as a charitable organization, and that Boards of Directors of non-profit charitable corporations have a fiduciary duty to ensure that funds are only used for matters related to its charitable purpose – in this case, the students of PSU. See 15 Pa. C.S. §5712. Moreover, the majority position is understandable given the lax supervision by those responsible for insuring that non-profit and charitable organizations operate as non-profit and charitable organizations as well as their failure to take action against Boards of Directors and Officers who use funds of a non-profit and/or charitable entity to pay funds that they are not legally obligated to pay and/or expend funds not related to their charitable purpose or who no longer act as a charity. See Zampogna v. Law Enforcement Health Benefits, Inc., 81 A.3d 1043, 1047 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013).”
If the Board is going to disburse money in this manner, then I am not going to provide it with more money. If on the other hand I can give money, or leave money, to a specific department or program (e.g. Paterno Fellowship) in whose management the Board has no say, that is another matter.
Another issue is that the entire Board as constituted in March 2012, minus one honorable exception who distanced himself from this action, published that the Board (Nov. 2011) fired Joe Paterno for "failure of leadership," a phrase it used twice. Keith Masser and Kenneth Frazier testified later in depositions (Corman and McCord vs. NCAA) that Paterno had been fired solely for public relations reasons. Masser testified, “The decision to remove coach Paterno had nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn’t done. It was based upon the distraction of having him on the sidelines would have caused the university and the current football team harm.”
I did not go to the U.S. Military Academy but this seems to put the entire March 2012 Board (minus the honorable exception) into the "lie... or tolerate those who do" category of the Honor Code, which means that the Board that fired Paterno and then said it was for "failure of leadership" did not meet the standards the USMA demands from 18 year old cadets.
The Board, as currently led, has taken no identifiable actions to correct its past mistakes or to apologize to the Paterno family and Penn State community for those actions.
