With production down, WGBH must cut $6.9 mil from budget
WGBH will produce a smaller volume of programming this fiscal year, President Jon Abbott told his staff in a July 23 memo. “In turn, our discretionary budget — which depends on overhead and employee benefits assessments paid by the productions — will be considerably reduced,” he wrote.
That’s just one factor swelling WGBH’s projected gap of $6.9 million dollars for the just-commenced fiscal year 2010 “that we must and will close,” he wrote.
Details of production plans still are not complete, station spokeswoman Lucy Sholley told Current. Layoffs are expected, she said.
Abbott said all departments will cut nonpersonnel budget costs by 8 percent. The station has negotiated employee benefit savings and is asking union leaders for concessions. In December, the station said it would drop 12 positions. In April, it had a one-week furlough, cut executive salaries and suspended matchng of retirement funds.
Web page posted Aug. 3, 2009
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