Wyatt Massey | Spotlight PA State College

Some items before the Penn State Board of Trustees — such as the $9.9 billion budget or building projects — often pass with no or limited discussion, a Spotlight PA analysis found.

Already sick, former patients of the failed kidney and liver transplant units face rejection and despair as they look elsewhere and grapple with the one thing they cannot afford to lose: time.

With bonds, Penn State is likely to take on the debt necessary to fund the football stadium project. But the athletics department will ultimately be responsible for paying back the loans.

Raymond Lynch documented what he thought were serious problems with Hershey Medical Center’s kidney and liver transplant programs. He was dismissed by Penn State Health just weeks before a federal review.

Trustee Anthony Lubrano said he is troubled by the university’s “use and abuse of rules and laws.” Legal observers also questioned the trend.

The university initiated a “voluntary separation incentive program” for some Commonwealth Campus employees as a way to reduce its multimillion-dollar budget deficit.

The performance-based funding model proposed by Gov. Josh Shapiro would tie state support for Penn State, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln to metrics such as graduation rates or retention.

A faculty member said Penn State’s promise to better fund existing DEI programs felt like “an attempt to pit people against one another.”

The discussions, which come more than 12 years after Paterno’s firing amid the fallout from the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal, might have violated the state’s open meetings law.

Over the past 17 years, the Pennsylvania legislature has approved either flat or decreased funding, when adjusted for inflation, to the four-state related universities.