UPPER DELAWARE, NY & PA — “As treasurer, it most certainly takes up a large portion of my gray matter, and we have very frequent, open and frank conversations [on the topic of federal funding losses],” WJFF Radio Catskill treasurer Katie Childs told the River Reporter while discussing the “real possibility” WJFF could lose all or some of its federal funding.  

Defunding public media was the topic of a congressional hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on March 26, with the CEOs of NPR and PBS. According to published reports, the committee was “widely supportive” of cutting federal funding, as is President Donald Trump. 

A large chunk, 25 percent, of WJFF’s annual operating budget comes from federal grants, which are used to power the station’s live and local radio broadcast for folks in the Catskills, New York and Northeast Pennsylvania.

“There is a real possibility that we could lose all or some of this funding in the coming months,” wrote WJFF board of trustee president Sally Stuart in an email sent to the radio listener network last week. 

Vital in emergency response

Beyond the general uncertainty about the future of federally funded public broadcasting—the Associated Press wrote that this is perhaps the biggest threat to its existence since its creation—WJFF has already felt the effects of federal funding woes. 

The station had received nearly $135,000 in grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to replace critical broadcasting infrastructure and ensure alerts can be sent and received in an emergency situation. This funding has been frozen due to executive actions. 

“It was a great win for us because it recognizes us as an emergency service to our community, which we are, and would allow us to have a better generator situation, better transmitter and improve our signal and make us even more reliable for our community,” Stuart said to the River Reporter about the frozen grant funds.

According to WJFF records, the station announced 105 of the 141 total Emergency Alert System (EAS) pings received in 2024. Historically, parts of Sullivan County are considered dead or hard-to-reach service zones, making the ability to communicate about emergencies in real time a vital resource. 

The issue of ensuring emergency alerts reach people, particularly in rural areas, is not unique to the WJFF coverage area and was one of the points made by Ed Ulman, the head of Alaska Public Media, at the congressional hearing.

WJFF partners with Sullivan County’s Office of Emergency Management/Homeland Security within the Division of Public Safety to assist with public awareness in emergency and security situations, both natural and human-caused. The station also says it coordinates with the Comprehensive Countywide Mitigation Program in helping promote and increase awareness of hazard risk and implementation of mitigation, which is part of the program’s goals of reducing harm caused by emergencies.

Childs explained that WJFF had already procured a portion of the equipment and submitted it for reimbursement when FEMA funding was frozen due to Trump’s executive order. The funding, Childs said, has been released by the courts but not yet by FEMA, “so currently WJFF is out of pocket on equipment.”

“We expect to be reimbursed. We have been reassured, and the federal government has attested in court that they will be reimbursed those purchases, but at this point, we are now well over a month past due on receiving those funds from the federal government, and we’ve been told not to incur any additional expenses at this time,” said Childs.

What’s at stake for WJFF 

The FEMA funding would serve an important purpose for WJFF, but it is smaller than the federal funding WJFF has used to operate for years. Federal public broadcast funds are distributed to stations like WJFF through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a nonprofit organization. 

Childs said that Congress approved that funding on a two-year rolling basis, in part because of politics, so though funds could conceivably be clawed back, they’ve already been approved until 2027. This also means WJFF has included those funds in its operating budget for the upcoming year. 

The CPB estimates the actual cost of federal contributions to public broadcasting at $1.35 per American per year, which for radio alone amounts to 30 cents. 

Stuart said that while a loss of federal funding is significant for the station, an even larger chunk of the station’s funding—40 percent—comes from listener and community support. “They’re huge pieces of the pie, and they will always be a key piece of who we are.”

Childs said, “I think that our job at hand is more important than allowing ourselves to be distracted from providing people with news, quality news and programming. Our job as a board is to make sure that the staff can go out and do the work, and so we’re not going to let ourselves get pulled away from that mission.” 

Future plans amid uncertainty

NPR’s listenership declined between 2020 and 2024, going from 60 million to 42 million, according to internal documents published by The New York Times. But, Stuart pointed out, stations like WNYC have expanded their listener support dramatically in terms of percentages. 

That’s WJFF’s goal—to grow its listener base and become less dependent on government funding. “We think it’s very important to have government support for community media,” Childs said, adding, “We also think that the challenges of the world we live in today mean that we need to expand our private support.”

The station plans to hold a listening session this month to listen to the community’s wants and needs and take that feedback into future planning conversations.

“We really keep in mind in all of our decision-making what the mission of the station is, and the mission is to serve our communities. And so while we make decisions, and sometimes they may be hard, we’re always very mindful of keeping a positive outlook, because what we are doing is so important, and we understand that it’s a vital resource,” Childs said.  

WJFF Radio Catskill is currently hosting its spring fund drive, which runs until April 11.  Find more information here.