School district considers new nonprofit to run WLRN
Miami-Dade County school district is considering awarding the management of WLRN, home to South Florida’s sole public radio news station, to South Florida PBS. The move would consolidate all of the region’s public broadcasting under one entity.
South Florida PBS, which operates public television stations WPBT2 in MiamiDade and WXEL TV42 in Palm Beach County, edged out Friends of WLRN, the station’s current fundraising arm, in a competitive bid to manage WLRN TV and WLRN Radio. The School Board, which retains the broadcasting license, will discuss the bid award at a committee meeting on Wednesday. A formal vote is expected to be held at its Dec. 11 board meeting.
The district’s request for proposals, issued in June, netted only those two bidders. A committee of five — Chief Communications Officer Daisy GonzalezDiego, Associate Superintendent in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Grants Administration
Iraida R. Mendez-Cartaya, Interim Economic Equity & Diversity Compliance Officer Jennifer Andreu, former Miami Herald publisher David Lawrence and FIU journalism professor Lorna Veraldi — rated the two proposals on a loose rubric and made the formal recommendation to the School Board.
Each member gave a numerical rank to both bidders in four categories. Those scores were averaged and totaled to create a final score. South Florida PBS received a score of 83.80 and Friends of WLRN received a score of 78.40.
Gonzalez-Diego marked down Friends of WLRN’s proposal significantly in the areas of technical qualifications as well as corporate past performance and key personnel.
In the school district hierarchy, the WLRN general manager is a district employee who reports to Gonzalez-Diego. The district has had a long-strained relationship with WLRN.
Gonzalez-Diego wrote in an email that the request for proposals is still under the “cone of silence.”
“The district solicited proposals through a transThe parent and competitive procurement process for a qualified and independent entity to manage WLRN radio and television stations, with guaranteed continuity of the public service currently provided,” she wrote. “The district received two proposals that were evaluated by a selection committee, comprised of internal and external community stakeholders. The top-ranked entity is being presented to the board for their consideration this week.”
South Florida PBS lost some points in the category of price consideration.
While the district’s bid called for a cost-neutral proposal, South Florida PBS included a management fee from 0.10% to 5% based upon a percentage of assets under management or a percentage of monthly operating costs. It currently costs $9 million a year to run WLRN Radio and $4 million to run WLRN TV.
South Florida PBS’ proposal called out WLRN’s “unusual” relationship with Friends of WLRN, even questioning its legitimacy as a nonprofit. Journalists in WLRN’s newsroom are employed by South Florida Public Media, which is a subsidiary of Friends.
“Not only is this unusual, but those same documents reveal almost no accountability in circumstances where the School Board bears total responsibility and liability as owner/licensee,” the proposal read. “Perhaps this aggregation of authority with minimal accountability evolved over time for good reasons, but it does not reflect what public media friends’ groups traditionally do, nor does it appear to meet the requirements of a [nonprofit].”
South Florida PBS spokeswoman Jeneissy Azcuy declined to comment, citing the district’s cone of silence, and referred a reporter to its proposal. President and CEO Dolores Sukhdeo, who submitted the bid on the nonprofit’s behalf, did not return requests for comment.
South Florida PBS does not currently operate a radio station. It also does not have any experience running a newsroom. The majority of WLRN’s resources are dedicated to WLRN Radio.
Friends of WLRN’s proposal included in its plan management by current school district employees, such as General Manager John LaBonia. He denied requests for comment.
Friends of WLRN chair Dwight Hill said the district’s bid sought management services, not a takeover of the responsibilities Friends currently holds.
“We’re very disappointed by the outcome of the committee’s work,” he said. “We’re evaluating our options and strategies to move forward.”
“We believe there’s some factors in the bid that were not fully taken into consideration,” Hill added.
Sukhdeo, on the behalf of South Florida PBS, launched an email campaign on Monday asking viewers to write letters of support to School Board members.
“This historic opportunity will strengthen the community jewel that is WLRN, preserving its partnership with the Miami Herald even as we continue to grow WPBT, WXEL and the Health Channel,” it read. WLRN is the Herald’s radio news partner, and some WLRN staff work from studios and office space at the Herald’s headquarters in Doral.
School Board member Martin Karp, who sits on the Friends of WLRN board of directors and the district’s community advisory board for WLRN, declined to comment citing the cone of silence. He did say he received emails from supporters of South Florida
PBS and Friends of WLRN.
If South Florida PBS is awarded the bid, the fiveyear contract will go into effect Jan. 1.