The Mississippi Public Broadcasting board voted this morning to start considering where to make budget cuts in response to threats to end its state funding.
Gov. Haley Barbour requested last month that MPB approve a plan during today's meeting that would reduce reliance on state support over the next five years. "In fact, your plan should be to eliminate all state support in five years and rely on advertising, sponsorships and production revenue," the governor wrote in a statement.
Instead of voting on a plan, however, the board took a step to looking at the process. MPB Board Member Dave Allen made a motion "to initiate a process to bring recommendations to the board regarding contractual arrangements for managing our pledge and drive times." Pledge times are the fundraising appeals made to MPB television audiences; drive times are the same for the MPB Think Radio audience. Before voting on this one item of new business, the board went into executive session to discuss a legal matter but did not take any action.
MPB is operating this year on a budget of $15.4 million.
"You would have to have $400 million in an endowment to get $16 million a year. We will never, ever be self-sufficient," said Bob Sawyer, board chairman and an investment adviser from Gulfport. "I'm being realistic. That doesn't mean we can't work harder to alleviate some things."
Clare Hester, a lobbyist representing the Foundation for Public Broadcasting in Mississippi, said HB 1495 gives MPB level funding at $11.8 million. Legislators are discontent over national broadcasting programs, but supportive of public safety, emergency awareness and Mississippi programming, such as emergency broadcasts of information from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, Hester said.
"MEMA wouldn't exist without us. If you don't think we aren't important, go to MEMA and look at the cameras set up," Sawyer said, adding, "MEMA uses us and doesn't offer us anything."
Partnerships with state agencies to produce programming such as Southern Remedy and Job Hunter have garnered praise and good will with legislators, said Jay Woods, acting director of MPB.
"No one in state leadership has questioned the quality of our local programming. No one has questioned our ability to do a good job," Woods said.
The confusion among legislators regarding MPB are ideological and philosophical differences in how it is funded, Woods said. "That's our major goal, to educate them.
Previous Comments
- ID
- 162481
- Comment
Looks like y'all just got served. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41986715/ns/politics-more_politics
- Author
- DrumminD21311
- Date
- 2011-03-09T09:17:21-06:00
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