Amid its stalled move from Clarendon to Courthouse, Arlington Independent Media is being audited by the county, according to the nonprofit’s leadership.
Meantime, simmering divides among the organization’s leadership, AIM members and people currently or formerly on AIM’s Board of Directors boiled over this week.
Board chair Chris Judson announced his resignation today (Thursday) after assuming the role in December, continuing the board’s high turnover rate. More than a dozen AIM members and former board members signed an open letter released today alleging financial mismanagement and calling for a special meeting. The letter has enough signatures to require the special meeting, according to one signing member, Lynn Borton.
“There were differing visions for AIM,” Judson writes. “The more expansive version is not achievable in the current financial environment, especially considering the recently proposed County budget for the upcoming fiscal year. In light of that, I have stepped down from the board so that others can take the next steps, which include responding to the audit and refocusing the organization on community broadcast. I wish them and the organization success in that endeavor.”
The audit, initiated this month, has tamped money flowing to AIM from cable subscription-generated revenue that the county, schools and organizations like AIM can tap into for capital expenses. It has so far received about $220,000 of the $368,000 in Public, Educational and Government (PEG) funds and recent social media posts by the organization urge supporters to tell the Arlington County Board this weekend to release the remaining funds.
“The freeze in funding from the County has created a crisis within our organization,” CEO Whytni Kernodle said in a letter published this week. “Without these funds, we are unable to meet our financial obligations, including paying our dedicated staff and freelance engineers and other teammates who are instrumental in keeping our organization running smoothly.”
Arlington County says it is pulling back until it wraps up this review.
“The Arlington County Board and County staff continue to monitor requests made by Arlington Independent Media for PEG funding, and are performing due diligence in reviewing previous expenditures before determining next steps,” county spokesperson Ryan Hudson told ARLnow in a statement.
This has prevented the build-out of AIM’s TV and radio stations, station manager Alvin Jones told ARLnow, which means more days without TV programming and more continuous lo-fi beats for viewers and listeners. He adds that the audit has made it more difficult to fundraise, which the county has asked the organization to ramp up.
“The plans, desires, and hopes of our bright future [are] now in limbo,” he said. “This limbo causes the newly founded contacts and relationships to allocate their funds to other organizations.”
In a letter that we are told blindsided AIM’s board, Kernodle blames members of the board who do not support her efforts to “amplify underrepresented voices and address critical issues” such as racial equity and climate change. These members went to the County Board to voice their discontent with her financial management, she writes.
“Consequently, the County has decided to freeze payments until they conduct an audit to address the raised concerns,” she said. “I want to assure you that there has been no misuse of funds within our organization. Rather, these issues stem from a difference in opinion regarding the direction of our initiatives and programs and the County’s desire to prioritize their own initiatives with PEG funds, which evades the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC’s rules on these funds.”
The AIM members calling for a meeting, meanwhile, allege AIM is interpreting what is PEG-eligible too broadly to include operating costs it cannot afford. Citing the 2023 annual report, they say AIM reported spending $622,937 on employee compensation and $104,662 on office operations yet only netted $453,048 in funds that can go to operating costs such as salaries.
The letter notes there has not been an annual audit since October 2021 and 990s forms have not been filed “in a timely manner,” threatening its nonprofit status. Its 990 for the 2021-22 fiscal year was filed last November and its 2020-21 Form 990 filed in April 2022, per ProPublica.
“We believe AIM Members, Arlington residents, and Arlington County leaders have been misled about AIM’s financial health and well-being,” it says. “Social media messages in the last week suggest that AIM is imperiled because the County is withholding funds. In fact, AIM has been grossly mismanaged.”
Kernodle has previously said that AIM received extensions for these filings and that she inherited the audit backlog.
Like the letter-writers, some board members disagreed with the social media posts and requested they be removed. One AIM staff member tells ARLnow this directive, unheeded, came from the county, a claim both the county and AIM board members deny.
The staffer backs up Kernodle, saying Kernodle contends with financial and management issues that predate her tenure and led to AIM’s previous executive director to resign. This person also says Arlington County provided no rationale for the $260,000 in operating funds it set aside for AIM in the forthcoming 2025 county budget, and said even with a potential $80,000 fundraising match, that is not enough to support the organization’s operations.
The staffer confirmed furloughs from December to mid-January and again starting this month. AIM plans to focus on building out the radio station to get pre-recorded radio shows out as soon as the PEG funds are released, the staffer said.
Staff seem dismayed with the politicking, which they say distracts from AIM’s potential.
Kristen Clark, the former director of community engagement for AIM, stresses that every person speaking up right now wants somewhere to “share their music and ideas, and tell stories that could have only come from right here, in Arlington.”
Some remember putting on the Rosebud Film Festival or volunteering thousands of hours to broadcast debates, high school football games and multilingual programs, she writes in a letter shared with ARLnow. Others are new arrivals who envision a place where everyone “has the skills and the platform for their voice to be heard.”
More from her letter, below.
We have never needed community media more than we do right now, in 2024. At its very best, a community media center has the power to cut through the polarization and algorithm bubbles and doom scrolling, and reconnect neighbors to each other across demographic divides so that we can tell a shared story that’s by and about and for us. I cannot imagine a cooler and more crucial place to be doing that than in the backyard of the Capitol Building and the Pentagon.
Clark looks to the future generations of reporters, filling the ranks of AIM’s Youth Journalism Initiative, for inspiration — sharing quotes from those student journalists.
“It’s scary to think that there’s so much of the world that you’re missing out on, no matter how hard you try,” said Vale, an Arlington Tech student and Youth Journalism Initiative participant. “By meeting people and hearing their stories and experiences I feel like it brings me one step closer to piecing together a clear picture of what it means to be alive.”