Iowa PBS and Iowa Public Radio said they're anticipating tighter budgets and cuts in the wake of the passage of the Trump administration's rescission package that cuts more than $1.1 billion from public broadcasting.
The House narrowly passed the bill 216-213 early Friday that claws back $9 billion in money that had been previously allocated to foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports more than a thousand local NPR and PBS member stations across the country. It passed mostly along party lines, with just two Republicans voting against it.
All of Iowa's congressional representatives supported the bill, including Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who called public broadcasting programs "partisan propaganda" during a Senate floor debate this week.
Iowa PBS anticipates losing about $3.5 million in the next 60 days, the largest cut in the station's 55-year history, said General Manager Andrew Batt. CPB funding makes up about 18% of its budget.
"We're going to have to look at cutting costs in places that minimize the impact on Iowans, and we're going to need public support now more than ever in our history," Batt said.
Iowa PBS, which broadcasts in all 99 Iowa counties, is still figuring out how the cuts will impact state programming, which includes Iowa Press, extensive state fair coverage and high school sports championships. Batt said he anticipates "some pretty catastrophic consequences" to public television stations across the country due to the sudden loss of funding.
"The decisions about television programming have massive, real ripple effects that can take a few months or a year in some cases," he said.
Finding ways to fill the budget gap could be tricky. Batt said as a nonprofit, noncommercial station, federal law prohibits Iowa PBS from raising money through traditional advertising and retransmission fees, which are the top two ways commercial TV stations generate revenue.
Iowa Public Radio said it has already taken "immediate steps" to tighten its budget in anticipation of the bill's passage, such as not filling open staff positions.
"We're really looking at downsizing our office and studio footprint. We're going to be delaying critical and needed maintenance on some of our infrastructure, and we're just going to squeeze every line item in our budget, but we're still going to have a big gap," said Myrna Johnson, IPR's executive director.
IPR expects to lose around $1 million, which is about 10% of its budget, Johnson said.
"There may be some minor changes in the short term, but our goal is to maintain staffing in the short term and programming," she said.
IPR experienced significant cuts in 2022 when Republican state legislators and the Iowa Board of Regents both voted to eliminate their support, which made up about 10% of the organization's budget at the time.
The nonprofit operates 27 stations across the state. It was created in 2004 by the Iowa Board of Regents to manage stations operated by the three state universities.
With the loss of CPB funding, IPR will now be entirely community supported and will be asking listeners to help fill the budget gap, Johnson said, noting Iowa has an "incredibly long legacy of public broadcasting" going back more than 100 years to when Iowa State University and the University of Iowa were granted some of the first broadcasting licenses.
"Development of public radio happened in this state, and so we just have a really strong sense of the need to maintain that legacy here in the state and are incredibly committed to doing so," she said.
This story was reported by IPR Reporter Natalie Krebs and edited by News Director Michael Leland. No member of IPR's senior management team reviewed this story before publishing.
