Wednesday, July 8, 2015

WBAI Treasurer's Report - July 2015



WBAI Treasurer’s Report July 8, 2015

The National Finance Committee (NFC) met on June 23, 2015. At that meeting the Executive Director said that the auditing firm that did Pacifica’s FY13 audit, Armanino LLP, had not in fact paid their final fee for preparing that audit. The auditing firm will not agree to the Executive Director’s suggested time payment plan of the money owed them. They did discount the original bill somewhat, by about $5,000. The amount they are demanding from Pacifica now is $62,500. The Executive Director has been asking the General Managers to accelerate their Central Services payments so as to get the money needed to pay this bill. The firm will not begin to work on the FY14 audit until they have been paid in full for having done the FY13 audit.

The NFC passed the following motion to be sent to the PNB: “That KPFA be asked to advance one half of the money due for the FY13 audit. To be considered as advanced Central Services payments.”

The Executive Director told the NFC that the National Office is working on the preparations for the FY14 audit. The FY14 audit was not completed by June 30. Any CPB grant money that Pacifica would qualify for would be reduced at the rate of 1/365 per day after the June 30, 2015, deadline. The Executive Director said that this is equal to approximately $2,000 of grant money lost for every day past June 30, 2015, that the FY14 audit is late.

The NFC passed the following motion related to the proposed underwriting plan for the affiliates: “The National Finance Committee recommends that the PNB attach the following provisos to any approval of the Affiliates Underwriting Proposal:

I. Prior to implementation, management shall consult a tax attorney regarding whether income from this program might be taxable, and what we need to include to safeguard the organization's exempt status with respect to such a plan.

II. All contracts shall be structured so that Pacifica has no obligation to pay fees to affiliates unless and until it has collected the corresponding payments from underwriters.”

From the reports given at this meeting most of the Pacifica stations are not adhering to the timeline1 for the budget process. KPFT appears to have made the most progress among the stations. The WBAI General Manager has not sent me a draft FY16 budget yet. It is possible that WBAI will be late with its budget approval this year.

Currently I am polling the local Finance Committee for dates when the members can make a meeting. When the committee arrives at a date when a quorum can attend a meeting I will find a space for the meeting, and post that information to the appropriate places.

It is important that the General Manager send his draft budget to me ASAP. There are also some outstanding questions left over from the February local Finance Committee meeting. At the June 10, 2015, LSB meeting the General Manager reported that the Spring on-air fund raiser had ended with a tally of about $420,000. Three days before that on-air fund raiser ended the tally was $237,318. I look forward to seeing the General Manager’s written report showing how about $92,000 was raised in the final three days of that on-air fund raiser.

R. Paul Martin WBAI LSB Treasurer

1The FY16 budget timeline was included with the June 10, 2015, Treasurer’s Report.

PLEASE NOTE: If the figures given by R. Paul in the final paragraph of his report don't add up... it's because they are wrong. When this was brought to his attention, he issued an apology, an explanation, and a correction: 


In fact the tally shown three days before that on-air fund raiser ended was $328,043. In preparing the report I had copied the wrong cell from the spreadsheet. Sorry for the error.

The $92,000 figure is the difference between the last published tally, $328,043, and the General Manager's statement at the June 10, 2015, LSB meeting that the on-air fund raiser ended with a tally of $420,000.

At last Wednesday night's LSB meeting the General Manager said that the final tally was $417,536. This includes $24,350 that had not been included in the daily tallies (including the Saturday morning ticket donations which should not be included). In the past the "final final tally," the one arrived at a couple of weeks or more after the on-air fund raiser is over, was always lower than the initial tally. That this "final final tally" is much higher is interesting.

20 comments:

  1. R. Paul Martin appears once again to be on point here. Remeimers is an idiot, without question, but one has to wonder as to what may be going on here with respect to the books.

    ~ ‘indigopirate’

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What books? There are no books.

      KGT

      Delete
    2. With so many conflicting figures being bandied about with consistent inconsistency, as it were, those books should read like fairytales. This ought to be clear to the present PNB majority, leading me to believe that they have equally damaging secrets.

      Delete
  2. Armanino LLP, should demand their money up front, if they have any brains. If they don't have the brains to get paid in advance, I'd question their work.

    I bet these WABI nitwits still can't see the writing on the wall. They are so happy to be pushing the slavery/reparations aural over-saturation, thinking they finally got a voice on the radio and that anyone cares. So cute they are. Never mind that in the nine months or so of the thematic change WBAI is going down the financial tubes at an ever increasing pace. These amoebas are really that stupid. Well, you can't argue with fanatics.

    I guess we should give credit where credit is due to Mario Murillo, who has taken WBAI into worse financial straights and a lower listenership support position than ever before, Maybe when he's done with WBAI he can become PD of WABC and work his magic there?

    SDL

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ummm.,, If the Spring on-air fund raiser ended with a tally of about $420,000, and three days before that on-air fund raiser ended the tally was $237,318, wouldn't the difference be about $182,000 and not $92,000 as suggested by the WBAI treasurer? Or is this Pacifica math?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They keep telling us that we are hearing something no other radio station will tell us. This is fully in keeping with that claim. Only on WBAI, where the rose-colored glasses subtract as readily as they add. To Reimers—the financial wizard selected for the GM position by the likes of Frank Lefever—bottom lines are pliant to expediency.

      The question here is twofold: why did WBAI Treasurer R. Paul Martin miscalculate and why did I not catch this obvious discrepancy?

      Thanks for pointing this out.

      Delete
    2. Easy answer, if we look back at what Hank Kee said last week, when he stated a memo went out that the station made less than half it's goal.

      $420,000 is a nonsense number from Reimers. Forget it altogether, since he probably can't count.

      The real numbers - maybe(!) - are $237,318 + $92,000 = $329.318. Now double that figure to $$658.636. Wasn't the goal about $660,000 or $680,000? Jives with what Hank Kee said, doesn't it? Maybe people should stop listening to RPM's feigned attacks on WBAI management and listen to Hank Kee a little more? So far he has been making more sense than anyone at WBAI.

      SDL

      Delete
    3. Hmmmmm.... your calculations add up, SDL. Someone said, "Go figure"... and so they did, each one to his/her own benefit.

      Now I shall return my attention to the profundities pouring forth from K-K-K-Kathy.

      Delete
    4. Ok, that's good, Chris. Davis learned all she knows about transitioning from the best of them - Dr Who...

      SDL

      Delete
    5. I hope you are listening to her this morning... she is having a major out-of-mind experience. I will post some of this, because it is beyond description.

      Delete
    6. I heard a piece of it earlier and... Listen, I already killed millions of my body's cells by having two glasses of wine with dinner (so sayeth Null). Now you want me to waste IQ points on a woman who, week after week, is falling ever deeper into the depths of insanity. OK, I will humor you and listen to the rest tonight and catch what I missed in 2X time via download tomorrow.

      SDL

      P.S. As I was about to send this... Oh, my head! I just poured myself another glass of wine... Intergalactic, supraspiritual psychobabble...

      Delete
    7. This is something Null dishes out from his own scam center... tells you a lot about him, doesn't it?

      Sorry if nothing I post makes sense.... I am just over-inspired by my new guruette.

      Delete
    8. Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!

      We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

      Dr SDLlove

      Delete
    9. Can you visualize the audience for this? A photo of her listeners is a photo of what has happened to Lew Hill's concept. I just know that fat lady is ready to take center stage and sing us out. Could K-K-K-Kathy be that lady?

      Delete
    10. If Murillo has his way, it should look like this.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEntZUx24s8

      SDL

      Delete
    11. Questioned about the discrepancy reflected in his calculation of related to the Spring drive tally, R. Paul Martin acknowledges having "grabbed the wrong cell." Here is his correction/explanation/apology:

      "In fact the tally shown three days before that on-air fund raiser ended
      was $328,043. In preparing the report I had copied the wrong cell from
      the spreadsheet. Sorry for the error.

      The $92,000 figure is the difference between the last published tally,
      $328,043, and the General Manager's statement at the June 10, 2015, LSB
      meeting that the on-air fund raiser ended with a tally of $420,000.

      At last Wednesday night's LSB meeting the General Manager said that the
      final tally was $417,536. This includes $24,350 that had not been
      included in the daily tallies (including the Saturday morning ticket
      donations which should not be included). In the past the "final final
      tally," the one arrived at a couple of weeks or more after the on-air
      fund raiser is over, was always lower than the initial tally. That this
      "final final tally" is much higher is interesting.

      Delete
  4. Did anyone hear Katie Halper yesterday? She's Julianna Forlano on lithium!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Is it my imagination, or has WBAI's Cuba fetish been even stronger than usual lately?

    I'm what most people would call a leftist on most issues. But my former in-laws are Cubans who left the island in the early days of the Castro regime. I met many of their friends and professional colleagues in and around Miami. Nearly every one of them talked about some relative or another who wanted to get out but couldn't. Some even talked about schemes to send money or other things, or even to smuggle said relatives out.

    Perhaps I got a biased view about how Cubans see Communism, at least how Castro implemented it. Even if I did, I still feel confident to say that few Cubans (the ones still in their homeland) are as enamored of that system as some producer/hosts at WBAI seem to believe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The WBAI hatistas have never, to my knowledge, acknowledged any Cuban (i.e. Castro) human rights violation unless it was unavoidable, and then they would find some way to blame the U.S. Government. This is how they operate—in a cloud of racist venom, delusion and denial.

      In recent years, that mindset dictated to their restricted reasoning that Hispanic people had to be included on their list of American victims. What to do? The "solution" was to go beyond the "black" color generalization and add a hue that fit lighter complected people, stopping short of "white," of course. So now we had "black and brown". Kinda like "one size fits all," but not quite so.

      This categorization did not originate at WBAI (what does, these days?) but it conveniently broadened the target area.

      Well, it also turned out to have its problems, such as what to do with the situation in the Dominican Republic? Now, before you could say "Jack Frost," a new distinction needed to be made: A population of Hispanics suddenly turned "white" in little minds. How does one tell one from the other? There must be an app for that.

      How long will this parade of imbeciles continue to have WBAI as a soapbox for their fabrications, hypocrisy and hatred?

      Delete