Vermont Public announced Wednesday that it had eliminated 15 positions and changed two full-time positions to part-time amid a budget shortfall and mounting financial uncertainty.
The cuts, which represent a 14% reduction to the nonprofit’s workforce, come just over a month after Congress voted to rescind more than $1 billion in federal funding for public media.
Vermont Public will lose $2 million from its current budget due to the rescission bill. The layoffs announced this week are a direct result of the loss of federal funds, Vermont Public CEO Vijay Singh said.
“This is a heartbreaking moment,” Singh said in an interview. “We don’t do this lightly and we do it with the intent of setting ourselves up for the best service we can provide for our community.”
The organization laid off 13 people on Wednesday and one person had their role changed from full time to part time. Two vacant positions were eliminated and one vacant position was changed from full time to part time, Singh said.
The cuts will affect almost every department in the organization. No local programs have been cut “wholesale” as a result of these layoffs, Singh said. Some programs have lost staff and a reporter was laid off from the newsroom, Singh said. He declined to provide more specifics.
“We are losing some folks who are faces of certain things but we will maintain those programs at least for the time being because we consider them core parts of our service,” Singh said. “Overall, the idea was to maintain as much of what we do while cutting as much cost as we possibly could.”
The layoffs will save the station at least $1.5 million, though that is a conservative estimate, Singh said. Departments have also tightened their budgets since Congress passed the rescission bill and members of Vermont Public’s executive team have all taken pay cuts, Singh said.
The organization is considering other cost-saving measures, Singh said.
In addition to the loss of federal funds, the station has lost money in recent years and drawn from its reserves to fill the gap.
Singh said he doesn’t think another round of layoffs at this scale is “likely.” But he acknowledged that the cuts will lead to more changes at the organization.
“There are going to be some things that we have to change,” Singh said. “We’re going to have to stop doing some things and we’re going to learn a lot about ourselves along the way and so we are going to be open to repositioning certain roles as a result of all of that work.”
Vermont Public was formed in 2021 when Vermont Public Radio merged with Vermont PBS. The combined organization had more than 100 employees and an annual budget of nearly $20 million. Singh was hired a year ago to lead the nonprofit.
Vermont Public isn’t the only public media station to cut staff since the rescission bill was signed into law. South Dakota Public Broadcasting announced this month it would cut its workforce by 25% and American Public Media laid off 30 staffers. Other stations, including KQED in San Francisco, WBEZ in Chicago and GBH in Boston, cut staff before the rescission bill passed, citing budget shortfalls and funding uncertainty.
This story was updated with additional information from Vijay Singh to clarify the number of eliminated positions and employees.
This story was reported by Vermont Public senior reporter Liam Elder-Connors and edited by Vermont Public News Director Mark Davis. This story was not reviewed by Vermont Public’s communications team or leadership team before publication.
