Monday, August 24, 2015

KPFK is in double trouble with credit cards and no elections either.

this is copied and reposted from Pacifica In Exile org site and KPFK revelations provided here- if links dont work well, please just copy-paste instead or see the originating site:

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"The severe financial distress at KPFK-FM, which resulted on Monday in an announcement by Margy Wilkinson-appointed general manager Leslie Radford of the immediate reduction of all KPFK employees to 50% work schedules and the layoff of three employees, has been accompanied by growing evidence of a year and a half of financial mismanagement of the station, 

"Pacifica’s highest earner as recently as 2013. KPFK abruptly fired its second consecutive temporary business manager after finding out about monthly checks issued to an outside person by the business manager, along with unauthorized cash advances never paid back. 

"The business manager was personally hired and trained by former CFO Raul Salvador to “fix” the accounting mess at KPFK in the fall of 2014, and per a motion passed by the national board in 2014, reported directly to Salvador rather than the station’s general manager.


"Thousands of dollars in fraudulent credit card charges at Walmart and Ralph Lauren on KPFK’s company card in May were enabled by an April replacement of that card by Salvador with a new card issued to the identical card holder (not the now-departed business manager). 

"Salvador failed to close the previous card, leaving Pacifica with two different credit cards issued to the same individual with different account numbers open at the same time. The old card that had been replaced almost a month earlier was the card victimized with almost $4,000 in bogus charges.  

"The former CFO offered his resignation the following day, only to be brought back as a “financial consultant” and now assigned to replace the former KPFK business manager after her dismissal.

"This sound clip from Monday’s KPFK staff meeting describes the scope of the KPFK bookkeeping problems and staffer reactions. 

"The layoffs at KPFK were for development assistant Sue Cohen Johnson, Film Club coordinator Donna Walker and webmaster Ali Lexa Al-Hilali. Walker’s layoff may cause a problem as KPFK has many subscribers to their film club and with every single employee reduced to half-time, it is unlikely any will be able to take on new projects, and refunds would be expensive and strain the station’s finances. 

"The station’s webmaster has double the then-seniority of KPFA’s Brian Edwards-Tiekert who contested a layoff in 2010 on seniority grounds, and is likely being targeted for participation in governance, as the first-place finisher in staff board elections in both 2006 and 2009 and a candidate again in this year’s suspended elections.

 "The station’s SAG-AFTRA bargaining unit has stated that layoffs and work reductions were neither agreed to nor negotiated with the union and has already filed grievances against Pacifica. The union has refused to sign off on an EDD work sharing plan, a plan that has subsidized the salaries of KPFA’s news department since 2011, although the station has made new hires since and probably should have terminated the state paycheck subsidies several years ago. 

"(Recipients include Upfront host Edwards-Tiekert and news anchors Aileen Alfandary and Mark Mericle). KPFK GM Radford stated publicly at the station’s local board meeting that the reductions of all staff to 50% time will not exceed 4 months in duration, but curiously presented a 2016 staffing plan with the 2016 budget which contains no full-time employees and several new part-time positions

"This proposal, given Radford’s definition of a half-time schedule as 17.5 hours a week, would eventually result in a completely non-unionized workforce with no health benefits, as the current union contract in effect only provides benefits with an 18 hour a week work schedule.

"This sound clip from Monday’s KPFK staff meeting captures staffer reactions to the work reductions and layoffs. 



                                   
                                      


"Pacifica’s long-delayed board election got even more delayed when the foundation failed to make a $25,000 postage deposit to secure the mailing of ballots. No information has been provided about the length of the latest delay. One half of the board’s elected terms ran out  in December of 2013 and the other half runs out in December of 2015.  The network has until  September 12th to mail the ballots to salvage the election. 

"The putative reason for the delay – that stations could not afford to pay the postage – no longer seems valid as KPFK has received a one-time bequest of $134,000 and WBAI has said they can fund their share of the postal deposit (about $9,000). Over 100 candidates have filed nomination papers for vacant board seats currently filled by stayovers whose terms expired twenty months ago. 

"Meanwhile, the five local election supervisors and one national election supervisor, who remain on payroll for the duration of the delay at $10,000+a month, have been processing fair election complaints and issued their first reprimand to New York’s Justice and Unity Caucus (a Siegel/Brazon-affiliated group) for failing to post a required disclaimer on their outside website.
 
"Pacifica’s latest overdue financial audit (for the year ending 9-30-2014) is looking, despite earlier reports to the contrary, like it will, after missing the June 30 deadline for submission to the State of California Registry of Charitable Trusts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, be almost as late as last year’s effort. 

"KPFK GM Leslie Radford confirmed that KPFK’s schedules for the audit “are not prepared” in this sound clip, contradicting earlier claims by Pacifica’s national office that they were


"Pacifica in Exile readers may write to the board at pnb@pacifica.org.

"To subscribe to this[theirs, not here ]  newsletter, 
please visit our spanking new website at www.pacificainexile.org

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[end of excerpts re KPFK included here from site listed above]

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