PITTSBURGH -- The following report by Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons first aired on Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m. on June 7, 2006.

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The question everyone seems to be asking the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, is how is spends public funds when employees and board members go on trips.

But the PHEAA said once again Wednesday that it is none of the public's business.

Team 4 reporters first requested the spending records last summer when they learned that the PHEAA was hosting a retreat for board members at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort.

Sixteen of PHEAA's board members are state legislators. Some of them flew to Nemacolin and home again on two state planes.

That was just one of several retreats at posh resorts over the past three years that cost more than $850,000, according to records obtained by Team 4.

On Wednesday, the PHEAA issued a final denial of the request for expense records.

State Rep. John Maher is the author of the state's Right to Know law. Team 4 asked him whether he thought that the PHEAA was right in telling the public that what WTAE asked for is not public record.

"PHEAA is absolutely wrong in my view," Maher said. "The documents you've asked for seem to be right down the middle of the plate."

"Your strike zone, there's no question, you're not on the fringes of the plate. These are straightforward requests, (and) they should have been resolved."

In its written denial, the PHEAA cites three reasons: that state legislators are exempt from the Right to Know law, that the PHEAA's trade secrets would be revealed and that persons doing business with the PHEAA have a right to privacy.

But a hearing examiner, who is a retired Dauphin County judge, rejected the PHEAA's arguments, saying that the "vouchers at issue here are not (legislative records)."

"We must reject the trade secret objections ... PHEAA wholly failed to prove a trade secret," Judge Warren Morgan added.

"The claim that a person's reputation may be damaged by associating with PHEAA we are pleased to reject on the ground of no evidence," Morgan said.

Despite Morgan's recommendation to turn over the records, the PHEAA said no.