Pacifica figures to ponder...

Posted by Tracy Rosenberg, snatched by CA:

A) September 30 Income Statement   

http://www.mediafire.com/file/fbew2so85uma99k/Preliminary+FY2016+Profit+and+Loss+Statement+v1017.pdf

B) Central Services as of September 30

http://www.mediafire.com/file/9l034qn0sbkl6t6/02+FY16+-+Sept+30+Update++Uncollected+Central+Svs+and+Healthcare+from+Stations.xlsx

Notes on Income Statement Below:

Firstly, thank you Efren for cleaning up the $34K error in KPFK's last few financial statements which had a large credit where the credit card discount fees should have been.

Hopefully these notes will help with cleaning up this statement....

To go round the horn with brief questions/comments

1) WPFW

It seems bizarre that WPFW's off-air donations would have slipped from $105,000 in 2015 to $500 in 2016. That's quite a decline. Is this a bookeeping failure to separate off-air donations from on-air pledges or is there really a 99.5% percent decline in off-air donations in a single year?

Similarly, community events income has dropped from $24K to $0 (actually -$980 since there are event expenses) in a single year. Is this a record keeping failure or an actual decline?

As with several of the stations, there is only website income recorded in some months with many months having none at all. With WPFW, there is $0 from November to January, in March, and again from July to September.

The election supervisor's salary should be accrued for more than one month even if it has not been paid. There is only an accrual for the month of June 2016.

The cost of the station's ballot mailing should be accrued to the station, even if it was actually paid for by the national office this year. Each station's budget includes the cost of its own ballot mailing and if you don't accrue that cost to each staton, then you throw the budget to actuals out of whack. 

The assessment of $0 legal expenses is unlikely to be correct. The WPFW LSB lawsuit filed by Jared Ball, Benito Diaz, Robert Daughtry et al against Tony Norman, Pete Tucker and the Pacifica Foundation was dismissed after a court hearing in October of 2015 at which the Law Office of Reginald Richter appeared for Pacifica on 10-2. Presumably there were charges associated with the October appearance in court by the attorney. 

There are also two legal actions initiated by WPFW's current landlord, one in June of 2016 and another in August of 2016. They have been dismissed, but there are probably legal expenses involved. I'm not sure the PNB was notified about the two complaints filed, so the summaries online are attached.

There are a couple of random expenses missing including the July telephone bill, the August and September bank charges, July tower utilties. July-Sept premium expenses, premium shipping from Nov 2015-Sep 2016, and call center costs from Oct 2015 to Jul of 2016.

2) WBAI

Website income only recorded for one month, March of 2016. None recorded from Oct-Feb or Mar-Sept,

Community events income recorded at $-250 with $4,036 in expenses.

The cost of the station's ballot mailing should be accrued to the station, even if it was actually paid for by the national office this year. Each station's budget includes the cost of its own ballot mailing and if you don't accrue that cost to each staton, then you throw the budget to actuals out of whack. 

Consultant expenses are $85,000. That is a lot and a $23K increase from 2015 numbers. Does the station's local board know what these consultant expenses are for?

There is $4,400 in legal bills accrued to WBAI in August and September of 2016. What case are these legal bills connected to?

There are a couple of random expenses missing including leased equipment for Aug and Sep and storage from July-Sep. 

There is a $20,000 "programming expense" accrued to WBAI in August of 2016. What is this?

3) KPFT 

No website income recorded from Oct to March, in June, or August and September

The cost of the station's ballot mailing should be accrued to the station, even if it was actually paid for by the national office this year. Each station's budget includes the cost of its own ballot mailing and if you don't accrue that cost to each staton, then you throw the budget to actuals out of whack. 

I will not dispute KPFT's official $1 total for legal expenses in 2015. I hope you got your dollar's worth.

4) KPFK

The station lists no website income at all

The salary figure of $397K for September clearly is meant to cover the cost of the arbitration loss, which appears to be more than $200K and closer to $250-270K. Rather than lumping it all into "salaries", it would be a better practice to break the items up into back pay, severance pay, and penalties and record it accordingly in separate line items from current salaries.

The cost of the station's ballot mailing should be accrued to the station, even if it was actually paid for by the national office this year. Each station's budget includes the cost of its own ballot mailing and if you don't accrue that cost to each staton, then you throw the budget to actuals out of whack. 

KPFK appears to have accrued LES expenses for longer than it had an LES working.

KPFK is still being accrued for $3,600 in national board meeting and travel expenses when there was no national board meeting in October or November of 2015 and any expenses associated with the June 2015 national board meeting do not belong on KPFK's books.

Depreciation expenses went to a credit of $1,200 in June of 2016 and also seem messed up for 2015 with a figure of -$17K when the actual figure is $60K +/-

Programming expenses have dropped from $59,000 in 2015 to $434 in 2016. Is this possible? What was $60K spent on in 2015 that completely vanished in 2016?

No tower utilities in April

The big credit in credit card discount fees is gone, which is good, but the month of May 2016 has an entry of $78, which is not credible when every other month of the year is in excess of $3,000.

Caging costs are monthly and they are missing in October and February

5) KPFA

Listener support number of $621K listed for September is bizarre as no other month exceeds $420K. The entire value of the September fund drive was $620K and 100% fulfillment in half a month is unusual, to say the least. Most of the value of the previous fund drive which ended on August 4 is recorded in August with listener support of $268K (the drive raised about $300K). 

KPFA's fulfillment rate is 86% less about 5-7% for Fresno pledges, so the value of the September fund drive is about $500K in its entirety and the entirety takes a few months to come in. 

The cost of the station's ballot mailing should be accrued to the station, even if it was actually paid for by the national office this year. Each station's budget includes the cost of its own ballot mailing and if you don't accrue that cost to each staton, then you throw the budget to actuals out of whack. 

Tower utilties are missing for December and February

Caging costs are missing for October and April

Printing/Marketing - Sub Supplies is -$114 for the period July to September

Negative premium shipping expenses in March and September

Negative fund drive expenses in January, May and September. This category should include rollover call services from a call center and full call center services in September. 

6) PNO

Neither the national office nor the stations seem to have accrued the $38,000 payment to True Ballot that was reported to have been paid in August before the ballots were sent. Surely that expense needs to be on the books somewhere.

Audit fee accruals now total $193,000. This is considerably more than the audit estimates provided to the audit committee of about $100K and this now appears to be the most expensive audit in Pacifica's history. $90K additional beyond the $82K fee and $15K retainer was accrued between June of 2016 and September of 2016.

7) PRA

Entry for $-1488 listener support in September of 2016 seems odd.