Penn State Overhauls Budget-Information Website

Penn State has reorganized and relaunched its budget-information website, the university announced Friday.

The site, more than a decade old, includes more than 2,500 pages of information, according to a university report.

"In our ongoing effort to be forthcoming, we felt it was important to offer a clear, concise explanation of the university's budget functionality and its income and expense distributions across our campuses, colleges and related units," Penn State President Rodney Erickson said in a news release.

The revamped site now includes a budget primer and an overall pie chart on an opening page. It also includes more-clear language to delineate various expense and revenue categories, though the actual volume of data available through the electronic portal has not changed.

"There was so much" information on the site's last iteration, "but it wasn't very easy -- to quote President Erickson -- to digest," university spokeswoman Jill Shockey said Friday. "He thought a primer would walk people through the main parts of the budget."

Erickson succeeded Graham Spanier, who stepped down Nov. 9 as criminal charges against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and administrators Gary Schultz and Tim Curley emerged. A former Penn State provost, Erickson has pledged a commitment to openness and transparency at the university.

Shockey said she understands that Erickson's interest in the budget website goes back well before the criminal charges arose, though. The university's Core Council process, largely a cost-control campaign that ran more than a year, had inspired "lots of questions on budgeting," Shockey said.

As provost, Erickson led the Core Council process, which concluded mostly in 2011.

"He realized, I think, that (the former budget website) was not exactly easy to navigate for general audiences," Shockey said.

When Rachel E. Smith began to take over as the new university budget officer in October, Shockey said, Erickson asked her to see about making the budget website more easily navigable.

Changes introduced starting Friday include a restructuring of glossary information and stronger overall organization, Shockey said.

"I think it makes things a little bit easier to learn on a step-by-step basis," she said.

The university also has invited suggestions for enhancements; contact information is available through the budget website itself.

Penn State spends about $4.1 billion a year. Each college and department has a separate spending plan, many details of which are made public online. Still, specifics of many employees' salaries, along with many university contracts, are held as confidential.

Erickson has said he would not object to opening all employees' compensation information for public review. Gov. Tom Corbett has raised the specter of bringing Penn State more fully under the auspices of Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know standards.

The official university report about the overhauled website is posted here.

Related coverage

• StateCollege.com's Penn State news page

• StateCollege.com's earlier and ongoing coverage of the Penn State-charges situation