Alabama Public Television board votes to pay for public survey using emergency fund

This article was first published by Alabama Reflector and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority voted Tuesday to fund a survey that would be conducted by a Republican-aligned company through Alabama Public Television’s rainy-day fund.

The survey, which would be conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, a national survey research and strategic services company, could cost the commission $47,400 plus travel expenses if needed if the current version of the contract remains in place. The survey will inform the board of what viewers want from APT programming.

The method of funding drew criticism from members of the authority and APT staff. 

“We’ve had other nominations shot down to actually fill this foundation’s board and actually do what we need to do to raise money, and we’re not doing that,” said Logan Glass, a member of the authority and the Alabama Educational Television Commission, which oversees APT. “And to make matters worse, we’re being fiscally irresponsible. Just like we did with this poll. That’s not fiscally conservative policy, what we did.”

Melissa Austin, chief financial officer for APT, also did not agree with the vote.

“It’s the rainy-day fund. It’s for emergency purposes,” she said. “We didn’t use the rainy-day fund nine months ago when we unfortunately had to lay off 11 people because of the defunding.”

It’s unclear if the survey can be paid for using the account. According to the AETFA Statement of Investment Policy Objectives and Guidelines, the rainy-day account can be used when a proration happens so late in the fiscal year it cannot be budgeted for.

Prior to the AETFA’s meeting, the AETC discussed the contract received from McLaughlin. Austin said the contract’s current state left many questions.

“The other clarification that we need to get is they mentioned voters receiving a text invitation that they would get the phone information from a voter database,” Austin said. “We had a conference call with them [McLaughlin] last Monday, and after the call, they ended up clarifying that they would use all adults in Alabama and that they would not use the voter database. But then we received the contract which mentions voters, so we’ve got to get clarification and correction on this as well.”

Austin said APT also had questions about McLaughlin & Associates designating itself as APT’s media buyer in the current version of the contract. 

AETC member Pete Conroy said during the meeting that the commission should postpone discussions until the contract was ready, citing questions that needed to be answered.

AETC Chair Ferris Stephens pushed back on Conroy’s argument.

“I don’t think we need to postpone this anymore,” he said. “I think now’s the time to do this.”

The survey was approved by the commission in April to gauge how Alabamians felt about PBS. 

Last year, the commission discussed disaffiliating from PBS after funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was cut by the Trump administration. The move sparked backlash from APT viewers. Gov. Kay Ivey sent the commission a letter saying the commission should conduct a survey if they chose to disaffiliate from PBS. 

Stephens said after the meeting that it’s the commission’s “duty” to conduct the survey, citing a section from the Code of Alabama that gives the AETC the power to “survey, study and appraise the need for an overall plan for the use of television facilities available for noncommercial educational use in the state.”

William Green, the vice-chair of the AETC, said after the commission’s meeting that there’s a misunderstanding of what the survey will be used for.

“There was a misconception that the reason for the survey is to get rid of PBS. And I admit that maybe [it] did come up at first,” he said. “But right now, the purpose of it is to find out what they want to see.”

Conroy said after the meeting what the poll is and what it should be are “two different things.”

“The message was pretty clear to me from the chairman and select commissioners, that the poll was to be conducted by a conservative pollster for a predetermined outcome which would not be kind to PBS’ relationship to APT in the future,” he said. 

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.