Minutes for the regular National Finance Committee meeting October 18, 2016.

Meeting convened at 8:32 PM (ET) a quorum being present, the Chair and
Secretary being present.
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Attending: Fred Blair, Adriana Casenave, Joseph Davis, R. Paul Martin
(Secretary), Tony Norman, Michael Novick (Chair), Cerene Roberts, Barbara
Whipperman, also attending was Mark Torres, interim Director of the Pacifica
Radio Archives and Director Nancy Sorden as an observer.
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Agenda:

Call to order
Agenda Approval
Minutes approval
PRA FY2017 budget proposal presentation and discussion
National Office FY2017 budget proposal presentation and discussion
Revised Central Services payments proposal
Check-in on state of station budget proposals
Additions to NFC Yahoo! Group or its replacement
Scheduling of future meetings
Adjournment

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Motion: (Adriana Casenave) "To approve the agenda." (Passed without objection)

The Committee discussed the motion.

Minutes approval 8:37 PM (ET)

There were no minutes awaiting approval.

PRA FY2017 budget proposal presentation and discussion 8:37 PM (ET)

The interim Director of the Pacifica Radio Archives (PRA) told the committee
that currently the PRA Staff is four people. For FY16 they had seven people. He
said that if PRA can regain financial stability that they can hire more Staff
and get at least five Staff, and then they could do a lot of grant work. He
said that they are not in a position at this time to do grant work of any kind
that requires matching funds, so there are no expenses of that sort in the
draft FY17 budget proposal. The interim PRA Director said that they were
budgeted for $160,000 in Listener Support in FY16 but only raised about $75,000
of that. For FY17 they are projecting combined Listener Support and Web site
income to be about $93,000 of which $85,000 would be Listener Support and
$8,000 would be from the Web site.

He said that most of the Listener Support revenue will come from the November
15, 2016, on-air fund raiser. He said that PRA has averaged over $100,000 from
the on-air fund raisers for the last 13 years and for the last two years
Listener Support has been about $75,000. He said he thinks they'll do better
this year. In addition to the PRA on-air fund raiser on November 15, four of
the five stations have agreed to give one day of the average of their Fall on-
air fund raiser to PRA, which means that the diminished Staff of PRA won't have
to do a second day of on-air fund raising.

The interim PRA Director said that in the last six months PRA has had six film
projects license portions of their audio archives. He said that PRA is
projecting an end of year surplus os about $60,000. He said that PRA is getting
some revenue from some stations using the archives as premiums, but that he's
heard rumors that some other stations have their own production facilities and
that they are doing in-house duplications of PRA audio files. He said that this
needs to be centralized, and that stations should send masters to PRA for
duplication work, and PRA would do it for a nominal fee. He noted that one
professor at a California university is using PRA materials for his history
course, and PRA is looking to get more schools to use their materials this way.
The interim PRA Director said that in 1990, the stations were made to give 2½%
of their Listener Support revenue to PRA and now it's down to 1.8%, which the
stations don't all pay. He said that each station should prioritize giving
their 1.8% to PRA on the same level as paying Staff salaries and electric
bills.

The Committee discussed the report. In response to a question the interim PRA
Director said that all of the PRA Staff are at three quarter time, and their
first priority is to raise all four workers up to full time. He said that if
possible they would like to hire more Staff. In response to a question about
PRA storage the interim PRA Director said that PRA had their own building at
one point, but it had been sold in the late '80s and PRA moved in with KPFK and
so they have three different vaults. He said that the storage facility was
connected with the National Office when the National Office was in Los Angeles
and then the National Office was moved to Washington, D.C. and was subsequently
moved back to Los Angeles. He noted that the vaults were mostly full of
paperwork, not a lot of tapes. He said that the only tapes in the storage
facility that was shut down were tapes which Pacifica did not own the copyright
to. They were mostly tapes of producers playing records or something similar.
He said that PRA storage is an expense and something that they're up to date
with and which they pay every month.

The interim PRA Director said that stations are not sending PRA an archive of
all their programs every month, as the PNB had mandated. He said he wished that
all of the Pacifica stations would be tied in to PRA so that they could archive
everything that goes over the air in higher resolution than some stations are
archiving their programs now.

Motion: (Adriana Casenave) "To approve the Pacifica Radio Archives FY17
budget."

The Committee discussed the motion.

Amendment: (Michael Novick) "To add, 'with the proviso that it incorporate a
cash flow projection for FY17 and correct any errors that appear in the
spreadsheet.'" (Passed without objection)

The committee discussed the amendment.

Motion as amended: "To approve the Pacifica Radio Archives FY17 budget with the
proviso that it incorporate a cash flow projection for FY17 and correct any
errors that appear in the spreadsheet." (Passed 6 for, 0 against, 2
abstentions)

Check-in on state of station budget proposals 10:02 PM (ET)

KPFT - The KPFT Treasurer said that the KPFT LSB got a revised budget from
their General Manager and that it was not a balanced budget and there were
problems with income; they passed a motion that there needs to be increased
income to balance the budget.

WBAI - The WBAI Treasurer said that there has been no newer draft FY17 budget
proposal since the WBAI General Manager had posted a "draft of a draft" budget.
The National Office is supposed to prepare the budget using information
provided by the WBAI General Manager.

WPFW - The KPFT Director said that there was nothing new to report. The Chair
noted that the previously submitted WPFW draft FY17 budget had not been in the
form required, and that he would contact the General Managers.

KPFA - The KPFA Treasurer said that the KPFA draft FY17 budget had been
presented to the NFC on August 16.

The Chair said that all five stations need to produce their draft FY17 budgets
two weeks from tonight, incorporating proposals from the NFC and actuals for
FY16. He said that there would need to be a recalculation of the Central
Services fees in light of the PNB rejecting the NFC's FY17 Central Services
formula.

Additions to NFC Yahoo! Group or its replacement 10:24 PM (ET)

There was a short discussion regarding the use of Yahoo! Groups and the fact
that if Pacifica ran its own groups there would need to be a National Office
person to handle them.

Motion: (Adriana Casenave) "To add Efren Llarinas from the National Office to
the NFC mailing list." (Passed without objection)

The Committee discussed the motion.

Scheduling of future meetings 10:29 PM (ET)

Motion: (Michael Novick) "To schedule a regular meeting for November 1, 2016,
to look at station budgets." (Passed without objection)

The Committee discussed the motion.

Adjourned 10:33 PM (ET)

Submitted by R. Paul Martin, Secretary.