KMBH financial statement blurred
HARLINGEN — RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc. attempted to demonstrate financial transparency Tuesday on its Web site, kmbh.org, but ended up with partially blurred postings.
Portions of the financial statements for KMBH-TV and KMBH-FM filed with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are illegible on the Web site.
Dianna Lee Alcalde, KMBH business manager, said Wednesday that the problem lies with the original CPB forms.
“In some sections they used a gray font instead of a black font,” she said. “It makes it hard to read.”
The dollar amounts are readable on the seven-page forms, but some of the corresponding item descriptions are not.
Alcalde said her own attempts to read the forms or print legible copies were unsuccessful.
The station may need as long as a week to fix that problem, Alcalde said.
She also said that the board of directors may need as long as a week to answer the following questions submitted by the Valley Morning Star:
* We would like copies of the current financial statement as well as those of the past three years for RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc. as well as its last three biennial audits. The laws requiring open financial records can be found on this Web page: www.cpb.org/stations/certification/cert2.html
* We would like copies of the current budgets for KMBH-TV as well as KMBH-FM/KHID-FM
* We would like the names and contact information for members of the various boards that govern and advise RGV Educational Broadcasting and its various entities.
* We would like to know how these board members are selected and the criteria used to select them.
* What are the lengths of the terms of board members?
* Why were three board members recently dismissed from the radio station’s board?
* The CPB requires that stations have a community advisory board. Why has the station not formed one?
The KMBH board of directors on Monday at its annual meeting said that all questions about its finances or operations must be submitted in writing.
The station’s board also said Monday that its attorney would review the CPB guidelines for financial transparency and the station would comply with the guidelines.
On the kmbh.org Web site, under the heading “Financial Transparency now online,” was the statement, “You can review our audited financial reports as officially accepted by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the latest fiscal period of 2005-2006.” This information was posted Tuesday.
According to the Mission Statement on its Web site www.cpb.org, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a private, nonprofit corporation that was created by Congress in 1967. The mission of CPB is to facilitate the development of, and ensure universal access to, non-commercial high-quality programming and telecommunications services. It does this in conjunction with non-commercial educational telecommunications licensees across America.
