Little Rock Noncomm Faces CPB Audit

Audited

ARKANSAS BROADCASTING FEDERATION noncommercial community station KABF/LITTLE ROCK is being audited by the CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING's Office of the Inspector General, reports the ARKANSAS TIMES, and the station's relationship with controversial organization ACORN is under scrutiny as accounting irregularities are being investigated. The website quotes an e-mail from station board member JAY JANSEN as telling volunteers, "As some of you know, KABF is being audited, funding is on hold, and the station may be broke in a matter of weeks. KABF could cease to exist as we know it."

The station's accounting, JANSEN said, was handled by now-defunct CITIZENS CONSULTING INC., a NEW ORLEANS firm connected to ACORN, and JANSEN said, "It's been a challenge to get answers about accounting and records and so forth because all that stuff was down in NEW ORLEANS and that stuff just disappeared." "The money was mismanaged and misused in NEW ORLEANS," said KABF board president LUCHO REYES. "We didn't know anything about it until the audit came about."

"ACORN no longer exists but there's an organization now that's called ACO that is the same people, with the same phone number, doing the same thing, and nothing's really changed as far as I can tell," JANSEN told the TIMES. "The people that were on the board before are still on the board now. We're seeking clarification from the CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING to see if that's an issue and I've got a feeling that it will be."

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