Minutes for the regular National Finance Committee meeting July 27, 2010.

Meeting convened by the Secretary at 8:48 PM (ET) a quorum being present,
the Chair being absent and the Secretary being present.
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Attending: Alonzo Brown, Alberto Luera, R. Paul Martin, Simon Pius, Summer
Reece, Tracy Rosenberg, John Wenger, Lavarn Williams, Bruce Wolf.
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Agenda:

1. CFO Report

2. John Wenger issues

A. Do any other stations have the Assistant GM position? Ours might be
called Assistant to the GM, but whatever.

B. Since I am the new kid on the block, I would love to look at the draft
budgets from the other stations. I may have them in my email, but I don't
recall any other than Houston's.

C. I am particularly interested in News Departments. LA's has shrunk to
one person. How many are their in each of the news depts around the
network?

D. Arbitron Ratings. Does each station get them? I propose to share
ours with the rest of you to enable comparative analysis. LA needs to
increase listenership, and I would like to know how each of you obtains
most of your listeners, so that we might consider importing your best
practices to LA.

E. Our LSB voted last year to increase our Arbitrons to the highest level
of granularity to support analyses. I believe we pay for, and get, quarter
hour numbers for every hour of the week. I say "believe" because our
Interim GM has refused to provide them to our LSB when we passed a motion
asking him to provide us with accounts at My.Arbitron.Com so that we can
see all of our data. How can the NFC help us get our own Arbitrons from
our uncooperative GM? Arlene, would you please "ask" him to cooperate
with out LSB. If that fails, would you please order him to work with our
LSB?

F. Metrics of Management Fatness? I would like us to develop metrics of
the Management Fraction of payrolls, station by station, and department by
department. These would support interstation comparisons, and might prove
illuminating, particularly toward the goal of identifying best practices.

G. What is the NFC process for dealing with unbudgeted hires?

3. Allowing non-LSB members to participate in LSB Finance Committee
executive session meetings
4. Question of whether stations are being double billed for sending
Directors to PNB meetings.
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The Secretary convened the meeting at 8:48 PM (ET), and noted that the
Chair was absent. The Secretary asked if anyone would act as Chair pro
tem. Alberto Luera volunteered to chair the meeting. There was no
objection and Alberto Luera took the chair at 8:50 PM (ET).

The Chair pro tem announced that the people from KPFK were not available
at this meeting and that the CFO had suggested that the committee meet
next week to deal with the KPFK budget.

Motion: (Alberto Luera) "To adopt the agenda." (Passed without objection)

CFO Report 9:02 PM (ET)

CFO Lavarn Williams reported that we are now in the fourth quarter of
FY10, and that this was always a time of pressures on cash flow in
Pacifica. She noted that stations were holding shorter on-air fund raisers
in August. She said that KPFK would hold its Fall fund raiser in September
and that the other stations would hold theirs in October. She noted that
WBAI and WPFW had the worst cash flow problems and couldn't meet some
expenses. Each station is devoting some part of a day to raising money for
the Pacifica Radio Archives. She reported that Executive Director Arlene
Engleheart wants a freeze on all hiring, and wants to cut back on
consultants and those providing outside services, and she wants to look at
discretionary funding. Each station needs a reserve. We have to pay past
due major invoices. With WBAI that includes rent. There are serious cash
flow issues, and we need to conserve. We need to think about the mission.
The CFO said that she wanted the committee's buy-in.

Summer Reece took the chair at 9:11 PM (ET)

In response to a question the CFO said that WBAI had not yet paid it's
tower rent for July and had not yet paid the rent on its studios for June
and July. She noted that WBAI also owed the National Office for health
benefits and that the station's postal meter had had to be paid on Monday
so that invoices could be sent out. WBAI owes about $130,000 all together.

The CFO said she'd send the list of payables to the committee.

The CFO said that the Executive Director would send out a memo about
hires, that General Managers would be hired, but all hires would have to
be approved by the Executive Director.

The committee discussed the possibility that some hires had been made
despite the hiring freeze.

The committee discussed stations pitching on each others' air and how KFCF
is credited with pledges.

John Wenger issues 9:31 PM (ET)

A. Do any other stations have the Assistant GM position? Ours might be
called Assistant to the GM, but whatever.

The answer was that some stations do, others don't and some have people
doing more than one job and those people might be considered Assistant
General Managers.

B. Since I am the new kid on the block, I would love to look at the draft
budgets from the other stations. I may have them in my email, but I don't
recall any other than Houston's.

It was pointed out that so far only KPFT and the Pacifica Radio Archives
had submitted draft budgets. Others are being worked on. The CFO said
she'd send out personnel information, and reminded the committee that such
information was confidential.

C. I am particularly interested in News Departments. LA's has shrunk to
one person. How many are their in each of the news depts around the
network?

Committee members related what they knew of the News Departments at their
stations. Some issues would have to be discussed in executive session.

D. Arbitron Ratings. Does each station get them? I propose to share
ours with the rest of you to enable comparative analysis. LA needs to
increase listenership, and I would like to know how each of you obtains
most of your listeners, so that we might consider importing your best
practices to LA.

KPFK is paying $21,000 a year for Arbitrons, WBAI is not getting Arbitrons
at all and other stations are getting some. The CFO gets copies of what the
stations get. The Chair said that the PNB should have a policy statement on
this, and she'd like information on what we're paying.

E. Our LSB voted last year to increase our Arbitrons to the highest level
of granularity to support analyses. I believe we pay for, and get, quarter
hour numbers for every hour of the week. I say "believe" because our
Interim GM has refused to provide them to our LSB when we passed a motion
asking him to provide us with accounts at My.Arbitron.Com so that we can
see all of our data. How can the NFC help us get our own Arbitrons from
our uncooperative GM? Arlene, would you please "ask" him to cooperate
with our LSB. If that fails, would you please order him to work with our
LSB?

This was discussed briefly, the Chair said that the PNB may need a motion
on this.

F. Metrics of Management Fatness? I would like us to develop metrics of
the Management Fraction of payrolls, station by station, and department by
department. These would support interstation comparisons, and might prove
illuminating, particularly toward the goal of identifying best practices.

Committee members told what they knew of their Management numbers, a pie
chart was suggested.

G. What is the NFC process for dealing with unbudgeted hires?

Members related what they knew, the CFO said that the Executive Director
would be sending out a memo on this. WBAI and WPFW were discussed briefly.
It was pointed out that some of this information is confidential.

Allowing non-LSB members to participate in LSB Finance Committee executive
session meetings 10:06 PM (ET)

R. Paul Martin brought up that the WBAI LSB Finance Committee had passed
the following motion, "The Finance Committee asks the LSB to allow the
Finance Committee members to be able to go into executive session with the
understanding that members will have to sign a confidentiality agreement
and be subject to the same conditions as LSB members." The question of
whether or not this was allowed by Pacifica policy or if it was a good
idea was debated. It was revealed that all of the stations have different
policies regarding the composition of the local Finance Committees, and
one station hadn't had a Finance Committee at all. The confidentiality of
salaries was discussed. It was suggested that this matter needs to be
discussed more and that a motion might be brought to the next meeting.

Question of whether stations are being double billed for sending Directors
to PNB meetings. 10:36 PM (ET)

The question was raised if stations were being double billed for their
participation in PNB meetings because they have to budget sending
Directors to the PNB meetings but they already pay central services fees.
The use to which central services fees are put and why the cost of sending
Directors to PNB meetings is separate were explained. A desire to discuss
the matter more in executive session was expressed. It was noted that two
stations aren't making central services payments. The National Office gets
93% of its revenue from central services payments and so far in FY10 it has
gotten $1.4 million in central services and has had to face $1.7 million in
expenses.

It was noted that Pacifica will have to re-file its 990 forms because some
minor things were missed on the audit, but the numbers remain the same.

Motion: (Summer Reece) "That the committee meet on August 3, and 24, and
that we schedule an executive session for each meeting." (Passed without
objection)

Motion: (Lavarn Williams) "To adjourn." (Passed without objection)

Adjourned 11:09 PM (ET)

Submitted by R. Paul Martin, Secretary