WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate late Friday (3/5) approved a budget reconciliation bill that doesn’t raise the minimum wage to a statutory $15 per hour and will put an extra $1,400 in the hands of many Americans.
The legislation also will direct hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 related emergency assistance to public radio and television stations.
The U.S. Senate approved the bill on a party-line vote that came with the absence of Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan, who returned to his home state to attend a funeral.
And, it includes the disbursement of $175 million in government funds to public radio and television stations.
America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) cheered the inclusion of the funds in the latest pandemic-related legislation, which was passed without the need of a tie-breaking vote from Senate President Kamala Harris due to Sullivan’s absence.
APTS President/CEO Patrick Butler commented, “Throughout the pandemic, public television stations, which serve nearly 100 percent of the American people, have provided a learning lifeline to millions of students whose schools were closed and to thousands whose Internet access was limited. We’ve also conveyed COVID-related information to millions of viewers from governors, state health and education officials, and other authorities through our role as the “C-SPAN” of many state governments and in our capacity as the trusted voice of community leadership across the country. And, we’ve provided countless public safety communications to keep our citizens informed of health and safety alerts and other critical matters.”
While some may view Butler’s comments as rhetoric, PBS Member stations are among those who have played a critical role in distance learning for some school districts, where technology infrastructure and socioeconomic limitations may have made out-of-class instruction an impossibility.
And, Butler said, “We’ve done all of this, and we’re still doing it, with mostly unbudgeted funds in response to the national emergency while losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from State governments and private sources due to the severe economic downturn that accompanied the pandemic. This $175 million in emergency assistance is vital to continuing and expanding these essential services when America needs them most.”
Importantly, the injection of funds from D.C. will allow public TV stations to continue to provide remote learning opportunities so long as they are necessary across the pandemic. While states such as Connecticut will soon limit most COVID-19 related restrictions, neighboring states still have some hurdles to jump to get to that point. Then, there is California, where some of the strictest lockdown rules this side of Toronto remain in effect.
“Local public television stations across the country have provided a broad range of standards-based, curriculum-aligned educational services, in collaboration with State and local education authorities, to help students, teachers and parents continue a high-quality learning process,” Butler said. “Many stations also remain committed to devoting their entire daytime schedules to age-appropriate educational programming.”
The funding will also go toward the delivery of educational content to students without internet access over-the-air and through datacasting, which delivers IP data over the broadcast television signal.
“Public television stations in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, South Dakota and Kentucky, among others, are moving forward on using their broadcast spectrum to deliver digital educational content to students living in areas that are unserved by broadband or robust internet, ensuring that students in more rural and remote areas have access to critical educational content, like their peers with robust broadband access,” Butler said.
