Joe Paterno's 2009 Compensation Was $200,000 Higher Than The PSU President's, And Other Grotesqueries

A few years ago, Joe Paterno and Penn State, facing an open-records lawsuit from reporter Jan Murphy and the Patriot-News, fought like crazy to prevent salary information about university employees from becoming public. Murphy and the paper won a court ruling only to see Paterno et al. appeal the decision to Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, which in 2007 affirmed the lower court's decision. Two years later, Pennsylvania passed the Right to Know Law, which forces Penn State to report some salary information, including how much Paterno and his "bosses" make. Below is the compensation breakdown from the latest report (click to enlarge; the full report is at bottom). Paterno makes a total of $1,022,794. President Graham Spanier makes $813,855. What do these numbers tell …