Fired KWMU boss says she’s proud of her work
The former g.m. of KWMU-FM in St. Louis is defending her performance after a review of the station’s finances and management prompted her dismissal last week.
Patty Wente was fired June 2 [2008], seven weeks after the University of Missouri launched a review of the station at the system’s St. Louis campus. The continuing review is being handled by the UM system’s general counsel and consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Thomas George, chancellor of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, fired Wente based on preliminary findings from the review, according to a university spokesman.
“KWMU is a St. Louis treasure,” George said in a press release. “This action is being taken to protect that treasure for the university and the community.” The university enlisted Mike Dunn, g.m. of KBIA-FM in Columbia, Mo., to serve as KWMU’s interim g.m. until a replacement is found. KBIA is related to the university system’s Columbia campus.
A May 7 feature in St. Louis’s weekly Riverfront Times brought to light widespread complaints about Wente’s management of the station by current and former employees (Current, May 27). A routine audit of the station also turned up financial improprieties, including misuse of a credit card held by KWMU’s fundraising nonprofit. Auditors said the station and the nonprofit, Friends of KWMU Inc., had moved to correct the problems.
Wente had not spoken to the press since the university review began. But she broke her silence after her firing to deny charges of mismanagement.
“I left KWMU in great shape,” she told Current last week. “I followed policies and procedures as they were laid out.” She also said that KWMU’s revenues from underwriting, membership and major giving had grown over the past year and that the station will end the fiscal year with a surplus. “I’m proud of my years at KWMU,” she said.
Wente, who led the station for 19 years, provided a brief termination letter she received from the chancellor. Citing the review and “all the related circumstances,” George said “it is in the best interest of the University of Missouri that your at-will employment be terminated, effective immediately.”
George said the results of the university’s review of KWMU had been “thoroughly analyzed,” but a UMSL spokesman told Current that the review is ongoing.
The university asked Wente to resign, she said, but she followed her lawyer’s advice and declined because no severance pay was offered. She is now considering her legal options.
Soothing the audience’s worries
Before Wente’s firing, former colleagues went public with charges that she had verbally abused employees, showed favoritism to friends and relatives, approved misleading fundraising practices and enlisted staffers to help her with personal projects on company time. Auditors, meanwhile, found inadequacies in expense reporting at the station as well as misuse of the Friends of KWMU credit card.
KWMU employees told Current that they shied from filing grievances with UMSL’s human-resources department because of concerns that word would get back to Wente. Some staffers instead collaborated on an anonymous letter listing their concerns, which they sent to university officials in 2006.
“I’m a tough manager,” Wente said when asked about the allegations. “When you manage, you’re going to be making decisions that some will like and some will not.”
In the wake of Wente’s firing, staffers said they were relieved with the change in leadership. “People are happy that it’s finally over,” said Adam Allington, a KWMU reporter. “We can get busy re-establishing trust with our listeners.”
Local newspapers had reported on the university review and the complaints about Wente’s management. As a result of the publicity, Allington said, people he interviewed for his news reports said they would stop donating to the station out of fears that their money would be misused. The Riverfront Times had cited credit-card records obtained under a Sunshine Law that documented Wente’s high spending at restaurants and hotels.
“It’s a relationship built on trust,” Allington said, “and part of that trust was compromised.”
Boosting morale within the station ranks as a top priority for KBIA’s Dunn, who started his interim job at KWMU the day Wente was fired. “They’ve been through a tough time,” he said of his new colleagues. “I want to make sure everybody feels good about themselves and about working here.”
During his time at KWMU, Dunn will also review the alleged financial misdoings within the station, both those already found by the audit and any others yet to be discovered. He will recommend any corrections to the president of the University of Missouri system.
The interim g.m. says he expects to serve at KWMU for three to four months and does not want the job long-term.
[A CPB spokeswoman said June 9 that its inspector general had not begun an investigation of the station.]
Web page posted June 10, 2008
Copyright 2008 by Current LLC
