By Chris Powell
Connecticut Public, the state affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, may be a bit ill-named.
It calls itself as “Connecticut’s only statewide, community-supported public media service,” striving “to be an essential source for truth and ideas.”
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Connecticut Public gets money from state government and the federal government. Two years ago it received a state grant of $3.1 million to renovate its headquarters in Hartford. Last week newspapers throughout the state published an essay by Connecticut Public’s chief executive officer, Mark G. Contreras, asking state government to maintain its tax credit for broadcast productions, without which, Contreras wrote, Connecticut Public might lose as much as $800,000 a year, revenue extremely difficult to replace.
Of course Connecticut Public is always soliciting donations from viewers and corporations as well.
Being underwritten financially as it is, being a federally tax-exempt charitable organization, and having “public” in its name, Connecticut Public would seem obliged to reciprocate with transparency and accountability to the public.
But transparency and accountability were impossible to find last week when this writer repeatedly telephoned and e-mailed Connecticut Public and CEO Contreras in pursuit of basic corporate information. That is, what are the salaries of Contreras and Connecticut Public’s four other highest-paid employees?
No phone calls, messages, and e-mails were even acknowledged.
Ordinarily such financial information must be available to the public via a tax-exempt organization’s federal income tax return, which federal law requires tax-exempt organizations to provide upon request. Transparent and accountable tax-exempt organizations typically post their tax returns on their internet sites. Connecticut Public doesn’t seem to do that.
Just as strange, the most recent tax return for Connecticut Public posted at the Internal Revenue Service’s internet site is for 2022, and it reported Contreras’ annual salary as $696,000 — $200,000 more than the salary that recently shocked Connecticut, the salary of the expense account-exploiting chancellor of the State Colleges and Universities System, Terrence Cheng, who will be getting another $450,000 in severance pay.
Why won’t Connecticut Public disclose the salaries of its top executives? Has Connecticut Public filed tax returns since 2022? If so, where are they? If not, why not?
The news organizations that recently published Contreras’ appeal for continued subsidy for Connecticut Public from state government may be obliged to follow up here.
Possibly also obliged to follow up are Governor Lamont and the other state officials who arranged Connecticut Public’s $3.1 million state grant, as well as state legislators, since they may be voting on the tax credits Connecticut Public wants to keep.
Or do Connecticut Public’s leftist politics, so congenial to those in charge of state government, exempt it from accountability to the public?
In any case state legislators lately are demonstrating laughable cowardice on other matters.
The General Assembly is advancing legislation to impose another delay in enforcement of Connecticut’s law requiring a little racial integration in public schools. If enforced, the law would require school systems to keep the racial minority student population of each school within 25% of the racial minority population of their school system as a whole. The pending legislation would delay enforcement for another four years, until 2029. Even then the law would require no more of school systems than the filing of a mere plan for integration.
Particularly hoping for delay in enforcement are school systems in Fairfield, Greenwich, Hamden, and West Hartford, nominally liberal towns where integration is great in principle but practice is something else.
Having long been intimidated out of sensible policy by the powerful bear lobby — yes, the bear lobby — state legislators seem about to punt the bear-hunting issue to Governor Lamont and the state Department of Energy and Environment Protection. Pending legislation would authorize the governor and the department to decide if bear hunting is needed to protect the public. Legislators wouldn’t have to take direct responsibility.
If Connecticut fails to reduce its bear population, each town soon will have at least several bears and eventually many more as disruptive residents. That’s not the integration the state needs.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
Love your columns. They should be required reading in every town hall and public school.
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Seven years ago NPR news choosers were numerous and well paid.
The 30 most highly compensated employees were reported to be:
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