Georgia Public Broadcasting Memorandum To Terry England, House of Representatives Appropriations Chair Blake Tillery, State Appropriations Chair Kelly Farr, Office of Planning and Budget Director FROM Teya Ryan, President and CEO DATE May 20, 2020 Re FY 2021 Budget Reduction Plan In response to the Governor's mandate to cut funding in FY 2021 by 6% ($918,498), GPB submitted a plan to OPB in November 2019 that included savings in personal services and operating expenditures. These cuts included savings in our health insurance renewal rates effective January 1, 2020, retiring eligible employees, eliminating vacant positions and savings in services that were eliminated due to consolidation of services Like all agencies, GPB is faced with an additional 8% cut ($1,224,665) and it has left us with few options to identify these funds. This pandemic has caused GPB to examine all revenue sources and we expect overall revenue losses in FY 2021 of approximately $4.5 million. Like many public media entities across the country, we too are uncertain about revenue sustainability but are doing everything we can to minimize losses any way we can. In light of these uncertain times, we have conducted another review and evaluation of our budget and, for this request specifically, our state appropriated departments. As with any small agency, it has not been an easy process to find another 8% reduction. We focused our budget review an operating expenditures and large contracts with our overall intent to save jobs for Georgians. GPB's 14% cut plan includes many of the items within our 6% plan in addition to cancelling the contract with Discovery Education effective July 1, 2020. The cost for the contract next year is $1,099,068. Discovery Education is a private company headquartered in Charlotte, NC and eliminating this contract is a better alternative than letting GPB staff go. We feel itis the least disruptive way far GPB to continue to fulfill its mission of service to the citizens of Geargia GPB has managed the Discovery Education contract on behalf of the state of Georgia for several years. Prior to FY 2012, the state funded the contract through the Georgia Department of Education. However, in FY 2012 the Georgia Department of Education chose to no longer fund the Discovery program. As a result, the state then transferred $961,565 from DOE to GPB to pay for the service. Since that time, GPB has not asked the state to fund Discovery's annual increases at typically 2%. We have absorbed those increases ($115,951) within the Education department or across GPB's overall state budget We understand that there is value to Discovery Education however, we also manage other digital education services including PBS Learning Media, all of which taken tagether makes Discovery Education redundant in many cases. The good news about PBS Learning Media isthat it is popular with teachers and students and it’s essentially free to GPB because the costs are included within our annual dues ta PBS. This resource does provide much of what Georgia's teachers need and want for their classrooms. We believe, with this service, we will continue to provide high quality digital resources to our Georgia educators and constituents As experts in digital education, we are canvinced that we can fully service the teachers of Georgia without Discovery Education. During these stressful times, we are certain GPB has the digital material to successfully serve the teachers and students of Georgia It is our mission to focus on original educational tools that are designed specifically to Georgia standards. Our strategy is to maintain a small education staff that can assist with providing relevant resources often sourced with ather funds. Our project, Lights, Camera, Budget! is a great example of this kind of public-private endeavor. GPB partnered with the Georgia Council on Economic Education (GCEE) and the award-winning media developers at FableVision studios to create this new personal finance game for students. The project was funded by a grant from the SunTrust Foundation Lights, Camera, Budget! is a digital game designed to help middle and high school students lear, study and review financial literacy topics, while also practicing their budgeting skills. Aligned to Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE), the game leverages the excitement around the film industry to teach students key personal finance concepts. Geargia educators and students provided feedback during the development process to guide production. Lights, Camera, Budget! was designed to work across web and mobile platforms and is available online and via mobile devices. GPB has seen a phenomenal response to this game with just over 750,000 downloads this past schoal year, and it was only released in January 2019. This isa perfect example of the public-private strategy that makes the work at GPB so cost effective for the state. Our praven commitment to serving as Georgia's leader in digital education will not change and we will continue providing Georgia teachers and classrooms with innovative and unique digital learning tools built to state standards. Ultimately, our reduction plan allows GPB ta make the necessary budget cuts mandated by the state while also streamlining our educational content to make the most of our resources and, most importantly, save jobs Since the pandemic began, GPB's educational department has been able to sufficiently provide services to support all educators and students across the state. They launched the Georgia Home Classroom initiative with our education partners at DOE. This initiative consists of a modified instructional broadcast schedule an GPB-TV and a curated library of digital learning resources for PreK through 12th grade that adhere to Georgia's state standards to foster at- hame learning acrass all subjects and grade levels at gpb.org/learn. Our education staff are currently in discussions with DOE about how best to serve teachers and students over the summer. The following table provides details by class on how GPB plans to implement the 14% reduction. Many of the items are carried over from aur original 6% reduction planPersonal Services: Health insurance and Medicare advantage plans net savings $__ 76,036 Retire two regional engineers August 1, 2020. Hire one new regional 133.719 lengineer and redirect some funds to existing field engineering staff. Retire procurement manager January 1, 2021 and rehire part-time 15922 Freeze full-time (vacant) Finance Analyst position, replaced with a temp. 50,000 [Cut part-time (vacant) position in the Finance department 30,000 [Move three positions in Studio Productions and Facilities from state to 346,757 lother funds. [Save funds on hiring fewer part-time broadcast engineers in FY 2021 89,188 Freeze FT revenue accountant (vacant) position and hire a temp 41,290 Freeze rehire of upcaming retirement IT position for 3 months: 15,700 Furlough all state positions >$50,000 for three days 38,589 $_ 837,201 Operating Expenditures: Savings on re-negotiated NetApp recurring expenses in IT department. 44,007 Eliminated four fibre line contracts no longer needed 72,668 New helpdesk contract net savings with new hires and re-org in IT. 69,000 Eliminate the Discovery Education contract July 1, 2020. 7,099,068 [Cut miscellaneous operating expenditures across departments. 21,219 $1,305,962 Total Budget Cuts FY 2021 @ 14% $2,143,163 GPB is a public media company, and we are often harnessing technology in an effort to find efficiencies. As a non-traditional state agency, we believe we meet these expectations as we strive to do more with the state appropriation and leveraging the other funds that we must raise GPB is involved with many national groups through PBS, NPR and CPB, for example, where we learn and share information with ather public media companies about making aur budgets work as efficiently as possible. We often learn about new technology and best business practices in tangent with attending conferences and webinars. We have attempted to balance the budget reductions across GPB to come up with solutions that will have the least impact on serving our communities across Georgia. We are also undergoing a review of aur other funded budgets and we plan on making adjustments and revisions to those budgets in time for the new fiscal year too