Independents for Community Radio Position on the KPFA Budget and Staff Cuts

Independents for Community Radio Position on the KPFA Budget and Staff Cuts

*Why Budget Cuts?*

It's not surprising that the prospect of budget cuts and staff layoffs has evoked deep concern, even anger, among KPFA employees and listeners, but we can't let emotions and heated rhetoric obscure the fundamental facts of the situation. The station must reduce its staff headcount for one sad but simple reason: /there is no money to continue paying all current employees/, there are no reserves to cover the shortfall, and there's no possibility of making it up by cutting other expenses.

KPFA is in this situation because for several years it has spent more money than it raised. In fiscal year 2010, which just ended, the station had revenues of $3.49 million, but expenses of $4.01 million, leaving a net loss of more than half a million dollars. The year before, in fiscal 2009, the net loss was even larger. The budgets approved by the Local Station Board and the Pacifica National Board for these years called for reducing expenses to trim these losses, but KPFA management largely ignored these mandates and made only minimal cuts. As of Sept. 1, 2010, our station had the largest payroll and the largest deficit in the Pacifica network.

The station was able to survive only by drawing down its financial reserves, then by suspending the payments all Pacifica stations owe to the national Pacifica Foundation for Democracy Now and other central services, and, most recently, by borrowing from the Pacifica station in Houston to cover the September payroll.

These options are no longer available. The reserves, which exceeded $1 million just a few years ago, have all been spent. The Pacifica Foundation can't survive if KPFA doesn't pay its dues (including its deficit from last year). And the other Pacifica stations have neither the money nor the motivation to subsidize our profligate spending.

So balancing the budget is not a matter of choice. And because salaries and benefits constitute the majority of the budget, and most of the other expenses are fixed costs that can't be cut, the only way to balance budget is to reduce the paid staff. And unfortunately, because expenses are so far out of line with revenues, the cuts have to be pretty drastic.

*The Alleged "Purge Plot"*

In the final days of the just-concluded LSB election, several KPFA hosts associated with the former Concerned Listeners group, now calling themselves SaveKPFA, took to the air with dramatic charges that three members of the LSB who also serve on the Pacifica National Board - a thinly veiled reference to – Tracy Rosenberg, Joe Wanzala, and Shahram Aghamir – were plotting to use the budget crisis as a cover for a purge of their political opponents on the station staff. Here's what /really/ happened:

KPFA's fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Management is supposed to draft a budget and present it to the LSB for approval in August at the latest. But as of mid-September of this year, despite the critical financial situation, KPFA's interim management had not produced even a draft of a budget. At that point, Pacifica's Executive Director, Arlene Engelhardt, stepped in to move the process forward. She invited management, the station's PNB reps (including both ICR and SaveKPFA members), and others to a series of meetings to discuss ways the budget could be balanced.

At these meetings, which for obvious reasons were supposed to be confidential, a wide variety of options were tossed around; inevitably, they included discussion of which staff members would have to be laid off and how these cuts would effect programming. The PNB members from the ICR (SaveKPFA's Andrea Turner didn't attend) noted that under the labor contract between KPFA and the union that represents paid staff (Communications Workers of America, Local 9415), seniority is supposed to be the primary criterion, after taking account of differences in skills and job performance, when layoffs are required.

In other words, the "secret meetings" were actually convened by Pacifica's ED, in fulfillment of her duties, and the supposed "hit list" was really the union seniority chart.

The upshot of the meeting was that the ED reaffirmed that KPFA's FY2011 budget must be balanced, and that in order to achieve that goal, salaries and related expenses have to be cut to a total of $1.75 million, down from $2.3 million in FY2010. Details about exactly who will be cut have not been announced, but after hearing from the ED about her plans in executive session on Oct. 3, the Pacifica National Board /unanimously/ (i.e., with support from all factions) adopted the following resolution: "The PNB fully supports the Pacifica Executive Director in the difficult task of balancing the KPFA budget utilizing the staff cuts recommended by the executive director in accordance with principles she has enunciated, of respect for seniority, recognition of skill sets and maintaining the programming grid to the extent possible."