New bill may open another fight between Pennsylvania and the NCAA

The NCAA and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett already are fighting over the validity of the penalties the athletic association levied last summer against the Penn State football program.

Now, state-elected officials are spoiling for another fight with the overlords of college sports: this one over where proceeds from the $60 million fine the NCAA assessed against Penn State may be used.

Pennsylvania lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday requiring all proceeds to be used exclusively for child sexual abuse victims and services in Pennsylvania this week, and Gov. Tom Corbett has said he will sign it.

Meanwhile, an NCAA task force is working on its own guidelines for how to expend the money nationally.

The big question is: can Pennsylvania lawmakers really intervene now in a penalty set out in a consent decree agreed to by two independent parties more than six months earlier?

The NCAA, as is its practice, has not responded to multiple messages from PennLive since the state House's 194-2 vote Wednesday. But it would not be a shocker if the association challenges the all-in-PA requirement.

Here's what it has argued in a pending lawsuit seeking the same goal as the bill: "Pennsylvania can not regulate how out-of-state private persons spend money they have lawfully obtained, or dictate that money originating in Pennsylvania has to stay in Pennsylvania.

"Nor can Pennsylvania law impair obligations under lawful contracts like the consent decree."

Here's the supporters' reply:

"We don't believe we're impairing the contract. We believe we're supplementing the contract," said Drew Crompton, chief of staff and counsel to Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County.

Crompton noted that the bill, sponsored by Centre County Republican Sen. Jake Corman, makes no changes to the amount or terms of the fine imposed by the NCAA, or even in its general direction that proceeds will be employed in the fight against the sexual abuse of children.

"We scoured the consent decree, and one of the things they did not spell out was a systematic way of spending the money... We believe that we have a place inside that debate," Crompton said.

The NCAA has commissioned a national task force to develop rules and regulations guiding use of the funds, and to hire a third-party administrator to manage it.

As that group started its work this fall, association leaders suggested they might reserve up to 25 percent of the ongoing endowment's proceeds for Pennsylvania, but that it would otherwise have a national reach.

Corman?s bill essentially overrides that process, and requires all proceeds from the fines to go exclusively to child sexual abuse prevention efforts, training of mandated reporters and other victim assistance efforts based in Pennsylvania.

Under the bill?s terms, all fine payments would be held in trust by the state treasurer, with grant allocations to qualifying programs managed by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

?Penn State is considered a public university, significantly funded with Pennsylvania dollars. It is wrong for an outside agency to take what many consider to be our money to dole out for its own benefit,? House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, said in a statement after the House vote.

?We strongly support the helping of victims... The point is, Pennsylvania money should stay in Pennsylvania and help Pennsylvania?s children and victims.?

The fine flowed from findings last summer by former FBI Director Louis Freeh that senior leaders at Penn State, in the name of preventing embarrassment, opted to handle a 2001 sexual assault allegation against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky internally rather than reporting it to outside investigative authorities.

Several other children were molested by Sandusky between then and 2008, when another student raised allegations that eventually triggered the state attorney general?s probe leading to Sandusky's arrest and conviction.

The $60 million total is said to roughly match the annual revenue generated by Penn State's football program.

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Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/new_bill_may_open_another_figh.html

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