Berkeley-Ten days after Pacifica’s interim controller issued a long list of accounting schedules and bank reconciliations to meet a projected start date on November 30th for the 2014 audit, it looks likely that deadline, the latest in a long series of blown deadlines, will be missed. Requests from board members for a copy of a signed engagement letter with auditor Armanino have been met with silence. The last meeting of the board’s audit committee wasn’t attended by either the committee chair or the secretary and disbanded rapidly.
Basic accounting has fundamentally collapsed at WBAI, where a Quickbooks secondary system doesn’t have the same numbers as the national Dynamics/GP accounting system and at KPFK, where the 4th or 5th temporary bookkeeper in a row quit and the controller announced major “adjustments” were required to last year’s financial records (or lack thereof). 4 of the 5 stations (all but KPFT) have not yet provided basic numbers like accrued expenses and advances to employees for the period ending 14 months ago. KPFA’s bookkeeper irrationally responded the “numbers were still changing”, which for the period that ended in September of 2014 should not be the case in November of 2015.
If the audit does not begin on Monday, it will officially become the latest audit in Pacifica’s history, surpassing the board majority’s 14-month late start on the 2013 audit. The network lost CPB-funding eligibility due to audit delays in 2014 and 2015, and is now hitting the 5 month delinquent mark with the State Registry of Charitable Trusts without even beginning the annual audit required by California’s Nonprofit Integrity Act.
Ongoing problems with handling of restricted gifts have also bedeviled the board majority that took control in March of 2014, with the LA station required to re-pay $25,000 to a foundation after funds restricted for a capital project were pulled, spent and not replaced, crowd-sourced funds to pay for the Uprising with Sonali TV show were spent on health insurance instead of video equipment, Wilkinson-appointed GM Radford defaulted on the contract with Free Speech TV, and recently, the national board voted an unrestricted bequest left to the Pacifica Foundation had been incorrectly reported as a restricted gift.
At KPFK, whose dramatic decline over the past year has been the most acute factor in the crisis that has the board of directors discussing which assets to sell off first, ongoing problems have included reports of guns at the station, threats to volunteers of armed self-defense by other volunteers, union grievances from the station’s entire bargaining unit after being cut to half-time and denied seniority, pension and union dues payments, and backed-up premiums not being delivered to subscribers. The latest problems are the station’s Internet stream, which has been broken since November 25th (now more than 4 days) and appears to have been knocked out by a repair of the archive uploader, which was similarly out of order from November 16th to November 25th. The station also had a close call when a local station board member trying to function as a “volunteer operations manager” accidentally blocked the vent from the transmission equipment causing a dangerous level of overheating and almost knocking the station off the air. GM Radford and the “New KPFK” volunteers she has brought into the station, notably roommate Adam Rice, have been responding to unending operational problems with cries of “sabotage” and after spending dwindling station resources paying Rice for “security services” are now running up expenses with private detectives hired to do investigations. The station’s fund drive begins in about a week with a $500,000 goal only four weeks after the last fund drive ended.
The network’s board elections, which would replace the half of the board finishing the 5th year of 3-year terms (several were not elected at all, but inherited seats after the winners resigned during their super-elongated terms), have not gone smoothly. Many ballots never arrived and notification of how to request a replacement ballot hasn’t gotten to many voters. (You can do so here). The LA election supervisor more or less vanished mid-job, leading to an extension of that station’s election until January 5th. The others may not be far behind with ballot totals to date much lower than needed for a quorum.
By December 10th or so, the network’s entire governance structure slides into complete illegitimacy, with not a single local or national board member serving a term they were actually elected to by the network’s voting members.
Pacifica in Exile’s election recommendations for all four stations across the country can be found here. All of the endorsed candidates agree heartily that big changes are needed in the governance system including a comprehensive bylaws rewrite.
In Houston, saber-rattling by the board majority towards long-time manager Duane Bradley hasn’t yet resulted in a recommendation to fire, but the campaign is causing a great deal of turmoil and upset. Bradley, whose 12 year duration as a general manager is twice as long as that of any other Pacifica manager or executive, although not most of the network’s hosts/programmers, has not had significant amount of success growing the Houston station, but posts consistent financial performance, never descending into the catastrophic operating deficits all of the other stations do, at least every few years
The muddled numbers from 2014 make assessments of the network’s 2015 finances an uncertain business, but working with what there is, the just-completed fiscal year yielded six-figure operating deficits at every station except KPFT-Houston. The nonprofit as a whole retains approximately a million dollars in long-term debt apart from the $2 million owed to former public affairs show Democracy Now, but despite gifts of $1.1 million from estates in 2015, it did not make any significant inroads into paying down debt.
Berkeley’s KPFA absorbed a $400K bequest not intended for it, and then a $565K bequest that was intended for it, in 2015. Without the legacy infusion KPFA ran a $400,000 operating deficit in 2015, the largest since 2010 (pending final financial reporting for 2014).
Former corporate counsel Dan Siegel and former ED Wilkinson set up a new California nonprofit foundation called the KPFA Foundation using Pacifica’s 70 year old mission statement to re-house KPFA and Pacifica’s broadcasting licenses under their sole control should the Pacifica Foundation file for bankruptcy or sell off broadcasting assets.
On November 8th, KPFA’s satirical Twit Wit Radio once again hauled out the truth serum. You can listen here.
Pacifica in Exile readers may write to the board at pnb@pacifica.org.
For readers who may wish to do more, any donor to a California-based not for profit organization like Pacifica may file a complaint to the open file at the Registry of Charitable Trusts at the Office of the CA Attorney General. Pacifica’s case number is CT011303. The form and instructions for filing may be downloaded here.
To subscribe to this newsletter, please visit our spanking new website at www.pacificainexile.org
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Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio.