Louisville Public Media's studio and offices downtown.(Jess Clark / LPM)Louisville Public Media is cutting seven employees — the second round of staff reductions at the public media organization in less than a year. Leaders say the reductions are necessary because member and underwriting support has not materialized to sustain several years of expansion.Through a mixture of layoffs and buyouts, leaders cut journalists and DJs, along with employees who work behind the scenes. Listeners will notice programming changes as well on WFPL, as the station swaps out shows for less expensive options.At its largest the organization had more than 60 staff in 2022. This week’s reductions leave LPM with 46 full-time positions.‘Out of runway’The latest reductions come less than a year after LPM’s last round of layoffs in May 2024.At the time, then-President and CEO Stephen George told LPM’s Board of Directors the $755,000 in cuts would allow LPM to move out of a deficit and “into the black” within one year — as long as the organization could also raise another $3 million from major donors over five years.George told the board his confidence was “very, very high” that leadership could complete the $3 million campaign, and that he had a commitment from an existing “cornerstone” donor.Five months later, in October, George announced he would step down as president and CEO to become Head of Emerging Markets at the American Journalism Project.The expected increase in donations has not materialized. Leaders say that as of March, major donors have committed $255,000 towards the $3 million goal.George declined interview requests and provided an emailed statement:“Obviously local media organizations across the country are facing unprecedented challenges that continue to intensify, making local journalism both more difficult and more important. I’m enormously proud of what we built at LPM during my time in leadership, and I trust the leaders and board to make the decisions necessary to maintain stability in a radically changing environment,” George wrote.In a joint interview, co-interim CEOs Gabrielle Jones and Ellen Oost said the fundraising shortfall is due to a new economic climate and to George’s departure. Jones said once the CEO search was announced, potential funders wanted to “meet the next leader and their vision for the organization before they could support at a super-high level.”Meanwhile, inflation drove up costs for LPM, and other revenue streams, including underwriting and membership, brought in less money than expected.“The businesses and organizations that we partner with through sponsorship are facing their own economic headwinds, and so they're not able to partner with us at the same rate, in the same dollar amount, as they have been in the past,” Jones told the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, a part of LPM.Weeks after George handed the reins to Oost and Jones in January 2025, the interim leaders and the board found themselves facing an $800,000 shortfall for the fiscal year.With reserves already depleted from filling past budget holes, Jones said the organization was “out of runway.”Oost and Jones said the organization will slash expenses by 17% in the next fiscal year to bring spending in line with revenue — a cut of approximately $1.3 million.Jones said LPM is “just not ready to be the size organization that we want to be at this moment.”The cuts, Jones said, should put LPM in a “stable place,” from which the organization can make steady growth, “as opposed to sort of the aggressive approach that we've taken in the past.”LPM is among many public media organizations that have made staff reductions in recent years due to rising costs and a decline in revenue growth.“Unfortunately we’re not immune to the challenges that are facing public media organizations nationally, and our growth in public service and growth in audience hasn’t resulted in a sustainable increase in revenue,” LPM Board of Directors Chair Abby Shue told KyCIR.LPM’s expansion eraOver a four-year period under George’s leadership, LPM saw a significant expansion, especially in the newsroom, which added reporters covering race and equity, business and development, breaking news, and state politics along with editors and a new executive position, vice president of content, to support them.In 2020 and 2021, George led a $1.7 million fundraising campaign to add new positions. George and the LPM board said they hoped that positions initially funded by large donors and grants would lead to audience growth and increases in ongoing financial support from station members — listeners who give monthly or annually. When LPM announced the expansion in a 2021 post, leaders said the organization planned for the growth to be “fully sustainable” by 2024.Additional grants worth nearly $1 million added positions for fundraising and marketing to drive membership growth, as well as an expanded statehouse reporting team.While audience grew by 20% during the expansion and news content grew 50%, member donations and underwriting did not grow enough to cover the ongoing costs of the expansion.Facing a budget shortfall, LPM downsized in May 2024, laying off eight employees and reassigning the business reporter and breaking news reporter to roles supporting a new talk show and audience engagement.“My impression after the last round of layoffs was that we were making hard decisions then to be in a healthy place now,” LPM Data Reporter Justin Hicks said. “And so to be back in a place that is apparently unhealthy enough to do layoffs again is really frustrating.”Impact of the cutsLPM’s remaining employees will see a reduction in benefits as part of cost-saving measures, including a possible rise in health insurance premiums and the elimination of stipends for cellphone plans and parking.Several employees said the benefit reductions amount to a pay cut that will have the most significant impact on employees with the lowest salaries.“The people in power who are most responsible for putting us in this position are not the people who are going to lose their jobs,” said Roberto Roldan, who covers city politics for LPM. “It’s the DJs, it’s the producers, it’s the reporters who are invaluable to this company who are now going to have their lives upended.”Some employees also expressed unease that people of color were let go, leaving the newsroom less racially diverse.Meanwhile, the search for a new CEO continues. LPM’s board chair, Shue, said she hopes to have a leader in the position by May.“We’re putting the organization in a stronger financial position to welcome a new president and CEO and establish a solid foundation for their leadership,” Shue said.As part of cost-saving measures, LPM will be dropping the following shows starting in May:Ted Radio HourMountain StageTo The Best of Our KnowledgePlanet Money / How I Built ThisLPM will replace those shows with the following programs:FreakonomicsA Way with WordsUnexpected ElementsEmbodiedNew Yorker Radio HourWFPL will also be cutting back the number of weekly airdates for its new talk show, On Track.Disclosure: This story was edited by WPLN News Director Tony Gonzalez. WPLN is LPM's partner station in the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom. LPM News Director Rebecca Feldhaus Adams reviewed the story. No LPM executives read the story before publication. ...read more read less