On Tuesday, President Trump's administration sent a rescission request to Congress. The proposal affects programs of the Department of State, the USAID, the United States Institute of Peace, as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Twenty-one percent of WSKG’s yearly budget comes from the CPB.
WSKG’s Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo spoke with WSKG CEO Natasha Thompson about what cuts could mean for public media stations like WSKG.
*This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo: Federal funding for CPB is approved by Congress two years in advance. Does this request take back money that WSKG was expecting for the upcoming fiscal year?
Natasha Thompson: Yes, that is exactly what it means. Funding for CPB has traditionally been approved two years in advance, to kind of protect against something like this happening, because it's really difficult for stations to plan any kind of change to that amount.
So we had been anticipating our regular funding for this year, it was about $1.3 million. We're so close to the end of our current fiscal year, we are in the process of finalizing our budget for FY26, and now it just makes planning that much more difficult, because it's a significant amount to try to make up.
PTV: You mentioned building the budget for next year, what will it mean as far as the services that WSKG provides to the community, if this funding is lost?
NT: I mean, I think we're still putting some scenarios in place. We're going forward with two different kinds of budgets: one business as usual budget, where we have that CPB funding secured, and one kind of nuclear option, if we don't.
And so there are various scenarios. I don't think a $1.3 million cut will necessarily shutter WSKG, but it will limit some of the things that we are able to do. For example, it might lead us to cut back on some of the educational services that we're providing in the community.
I think a lot of people might not be aware that we have an education department, and we're going out to libraries and school districts and daycare centers across our 21 county region serving communities in the Southern Tier, the Finger Lakes, Central New York.
Most of those communities in our region are rural, and I think this would be a huge impact on those communities, to lose the services from our education department, to lose access to news from their community, to lose access to community engagement events like public screenings and panel discussions on various topics that are important to the communities that we serve. It will definitely restrict what we're able to do in our community.
PTV: As CEO, what have you been doing to advocate for public media and for WSKG?
NT: Over the past two days, we have tried to inform our members and provide them with resources so that they can advocate on behalf of the station. It's so important for our elected officials right now, in this moment, to hear from people who are supporters of public media.
There is a sense that the House is going to vote on this rescission package as early as next week. Essentially, Congress has 45 days to respond to a rescission package from the president. And so if they do nothing in 45 days, it just goes away. But the sense is that the House Speaker Mike Johnson will call for a vote next week. If the house approves the rescission package, then it goes to the Senate.
And folks are saying that the Senate probably won't take up this bill until either the end of June, beginning of July, because the Senate is currently in the process of finalizing their budget bill. But even if the Senate votes against it, I do think that there are going to be other threats and challenges that are going to happen down the road. I don't think this is sort of our last, our last battle. But I do believe that if people make their voices heard, if they contact their elected officials, even if your house member is supportive, I think the messaging really needs to be to encourage them to talk to one of their colleagues across the aisle. I think that it's so important that our elected officials know how important public media is to all of the communities that we serve.
PTV: Thank you so much for sitting down and talking to me about this, Natasha, I'm sure our listeners appreciate it, and we'll be keeping an eye out for news as this moves forward.
NT: Thank you, Phoebe.