WASHINGTON – The Maine Public Broadcasting Network would survive a federal funding cut that’s being pushed by House Republicans, but not without significant changes, the network’s chief financial officer said Friday.
“We are hoping that funding for public broadcasting continues to exist and exists at a level reasonably close to where it is today,” said John Isacke, MPBN’s vice president and chief financial officer.
If federal funding for public broadcasting is eliminated, he said, “we will do what we need to do and Maine Public Broadcasting will continue to exist, albeit in some different mode with a 14 percent spending cut.”
MPBN receives about $1.5 million a year in federal funding, 14 percent of the budget for its television and radio stations, said Isacke.
House GOP leaders were working Friday to pass legislation to cut federal spending by $61 billion for the rest of this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
Among the cuts in the bill is $430 million in general funding slated this year for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the elimination of another $86 million that has been granted this year for specific public broadcasting grants and projects.
The lead proponent of cutting public broadcasting funding, GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, said, “If that money can stay in the private sector, people can invest and create private sector jobs, and those are the jobs that Americans are really looking for.”
An attempt by House Democrats to restore the funding through an amendment offered late Thursday night was blocked from being voted on, but Democrats in the Senate, where they are the majority, have indicated that they plan to make major changes to the House bill.
Isacke noted that because the national Corporation for Public Broadcasting gives money to local stations in two-year advance allocations, a cut in federal funding this year would not affect Maine until mid-2012.
MaineToday Media Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Riskind can be contacted at 791-6280 or at:
jriskind@mainetoday.com
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