Response to Governor’s Announced Budget Cuts for Public Broadcasting
From Curtis Monk, President and CEO, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting - We are disappointed that the Governor has eliminated the educational telecommunications funding from the state’s 2012/2014 budget. As has been the case in the past, we will work with the system of checks and balances that is inherent in our legislative process and seek to make the case to the General Assembly for restoration of funding for these needed services. Our concern is that this funding directly affects our educational services for parents and teachers.
It particularly impacts low income families and rural schools in our service areas. It is going to be extremely difficult to offset the lack of this funding . We are going to have to look at all avenues to determine if we can continue to provide these services, or a portion of these services to the parents and teachers that have benefited from these resources over the years.
We understand that in this environment, the Governor has some tough decisions to make. We suspected that funding for the Community Services Grants for public radio and television stations might be zeroed out, and have been preparing to offset this loss in funding. Over the past several years, we’ve been tightening our belts looking for more efficient ways to do business.
At the same time, we’ve been working to ensure that all of our avenues of community support are favorable. Last fiscal year, membership in WCVE Public Radio surpassed one million dollars for the first time in our history. This past month, the Community Idea Stations’ Winter Television Membership Campaign went over the targeted goal amount.
We are introducing a new fundraising event, the Big Idea Challenge, that will kick off in the Spring of 2012. The public will begin hearing about this in early January, 2012. And, there are a number of other initiatives we’re working on to raise revenues.
Through these efforts, we were prepared to offset the removal of funding for the Community Service Grants, but the loss of funding for educational telecommunications will seriously impact our ability to serve those most in need—low income families and rural schools.
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The irony in not supporting public radio is the argument that is used "I like public radio, but I can get my radio information elsewhere." Let's apply the same argument to public hunting lands. The state subsidizes hunters in the amount of $14m annually. Let's stop that subsidy. After all, the hunters can find places to hunt without public support. Join a hunt club.
It would be helpful and more motivating to explain the Community Services effort and to describe what will not happen without funding for educational services. For example, if fewer administrators will be on the state or school district payrolls I won't be concerned, but if resources for classroom teachers are further reduced then the quality of elementary and secondary education will suffer.
Yesterday I heard (on WCVE) that the Governor proposes to increase funding of post secondary education. The money would be better spent at the elementary school level to prepare students for further education before it's TOO LATE to have measurable impact. The Governor's policy is ill-informed, which means that the Secretary of Education is not educating the Governor. Any nationally-recognized source for education policy would advise the Governor to support the lower grades and specifically to provide significant funding for teachers' salaries, including merit pay. The Governor has instead proposed a 3% bonus (non-additive, I presume) pay raise for all public employees, a purely political decision.
The Governor is simply decorating the legislative Christmas tree by proposing increased funding for colleges and universities. It is an easy way to curry favor in the legislative session since the senators and delegates will find ways to thank him for helping their alma maters and protecting the jobs of constituents. It is an unfortunate truth that the Governor and legislators show less concern for the public servants who taught them to read and write.
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