Airport Authority’s successful ‘open records’ delay tactics highlight state law’s weakness
It took the Post-Gazette’s Mark Belko more than two years to acquire public documents from the Allegheny County Airport Authority detailing its unusual use of severance payments to former employees: $2.6 million to 96 employees over eight years. It’s yet another example of the state’s broken open records system, which allows public agencies to keep public records form the public’s eyes, while spending public money in the process.
These findings shed some light onto the tenure of Christina Cassotis, who took over as CEO in 2015 and placed her stamp on the authority in the years since, including a notable increase in direct-flight destinations, a brutal legal fight with Airmall operator Fraport and the construction of a new $1.6 billion terminal. But, because of the agency’s refusal to hand over the documents in a timely manner, the light they shed has dimmed — which was, of course, the point.
One thing that is clear: Ms. Cassotis runs a tight ship — so tight that the public can barely see through the cracks.
The Post-Gazette first filed a Rightto-Know request in October 2021, seeking names of employees who received payouts, their amounts, and their dates.
Every third party agreed the severance information was public, from the state’s Office of Open Records to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas and the state Commonwealth Court. The airport authority finally stopped appealing and released the information in November 2023, when the case landed at the state Supreme Court.
This episode is particularly frustrating because the meaning of the payments is unclear, and not obviously illicit — but the long delay in securing the public documents has made getting at the truth much more difficult.
We can say that the payouts were unusual: Over the same eight years, the rest of the Allegheny County bureaucracy paid only five severance agreements, to the airport authority’s 96. They could be defensible as a costeffective, if ruthless, management strategy. Or they could indicate a CEO using her power to remove or silence dissenters — and using public money for the purpose.
The Post-Gazette’s reporting revealed mixed reactions among former employees. Most spoke anonymously, with some saying they felt their termination or forced retirement was retaliatory in some way. Others were happy with the deals they received.
As we have previously emphasized, Pennsylvania’s open records laws are weak and easy to skirt. The appeals process runs long, making reporters’ search for interviews, documents and meeting information more difficult. Recalcitrance among public agencies is essentially rewarded: For the cost (in public money) of their lawyers’ time, the airport authority delayed the release of public information by two years, making its ultimate revelation less illuminative than it might have been.
This reflects badly on the authority’s commitment to transparency, but above all on state law’s ability to make public agencies do the right thing. If public records in Pennsylvania can be withheld during years of frivolous litigation, they aren’t really public at all.