WVPE braces for future as state and federal funding is cut

“It’s easy to destroy what has been built up over 40 years, but it’s a lot harder to rebuild,” Tony Krabill, content director at WVPE, said in an interview with Watershed Voice.

WVPE, which began broadcasting in 1972, is now facing the loss of all its state and federal funding — amounting to roughly 13% of its annual budget, or about $250,000. Of that, 8% comes from federal support and 5% from the state of Indiana.

The station serves 17 counties in north-central Indiana and southwestern Michigan, including Cass County, Kalamazoo County, and St. Joseph counties in Michigan and Indiana. It reaches approximately 50,000 listeners each week, with around a third in Michigan, according to the station’s website.

The cuts

In April, Indiana lawmakers eliminated all funding for public broadcasting during the final stage of state budget negotiations. Governor Eric Holcomb’s proposed budget included $3.675 million per year for Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations (IPBS), and that funding remained in both House and Senate versions of the budget.

But during the final step, a closed door conference committee where House and Senate leaders reconcile differences, IPBS funding was quietly stripped. The revised budget was then fast-tracked for an up-or-down vote, with no opportunity for amendments or public debate.

“There was assurance, at least verbally, from my understanding to our managers from the budget committees that funding would stay there,” Krabill said. “And then there was supposedly a $47 billion forecasted revenue shortfall, and so that $3.675 million was somehow supposed to help with that $47 billion shortfall.”

Krabill noted the confusion became even more frustrating after the state comptroller later reported a $2.3 billion surplus: “So make that make sense.”

The state funding had helped support WVPE’s access to statehouse reporting through IPB News, a statewide journalism collaboration. Without it, WVPE has lost a key source of legislative coverage.

The second blow came earlier this month when Congress passed the Rescissions Act of 2025, which eliminated all federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — the agency that supports NPR, PBS, and their affiliate stations. That decision cut an additional $174,000 from WVPE’s annual budget.

The fallout

“People are upset that this has happened, and they want to make sure we’re here,” Krabill said. “But what has to happen is that people have to be sustaining. They have to do that year after year. So people are mad about it this year, but what happens next year? What happens two or three years from now?”

Krabill said threats to defund public media are nothing new.

“There have been calls for defunding public broadcasting for as long as I’ve known anything about public broadcasting, which is more than 40 years.”

Efforts to defund the CPB date back to the Nixon administration, when President Richard Nixon sought to realign the corporations board to better reflect White House priorities.

Public media’s role

The question of whether public media deserves public funding has long been debated. When asked for his view, Krabill was clear.

“We do serve a public good. We amplify voices — we try to amplify all the voices that we can. We keep people informed about what’s happening in their community. We believe that’s a civic service. The cultural and arts programming we provide is also for the public good. And of course, the emergency alerts along would be enough reason to justify our existence.”

While WVPE will survive the immediate cuts, Krabill said the station’s long-term future depends on consistent community support.

What listeners can do

“The biggest thing they can do is support the station — contribute financially. A one-time gift is nice, but im worried about what happens to the future . Monthly sustaining gifts make a bigger difference. We’ve had people say they’re doubling their monthly gifts, that’s absolutely awesome. If more people did that, or if listeners who’ve never contributed realized now’s the time, that would keep us going.”

He added with a smile, “So this is my pledge pitch here, right?”

Despite the financial uncertainty, Krabill remains hopeful.

“I love my job. WVPE is here, and as long as we can be, we’re not going anywhere. We’re just going to keep doing what we love for as long as we can.”

Maxwell Knauer is a staff writer with Watershed Voice.