PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Legislation approved by a Senate committee Wednesday would lift some of the secrecy from the future -- but not the past -- award of free college tuition worth up to $26,444 a year to University of Rhode Island and state college employees and their spouses and children.
Introduced at the request of Governor Chafee, the legislation approved unanimously by the Senate Committee on Education would require any public employee receiving a tuition waiver in the future to consent to the "public disclosure and amount of the waiver.''
State law requires the disclosure of public employee salaries, benefits and "other remuneration."
The schools have refused to name the recipients, claiming the state's Access to Public Records Act law does not apply to the $9.2 million waiver program.
Assistant Attorney General Michael W. Field agreed, deciding the student records protections in the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, commonly known as FERPA, trump the disclosure requirement in the state's open-records law.
The legislation is headed to the full Senate for a vote.