How much do PBS employees earn?

At the Rio Grande Foundation we remain philosophically opposed to government-funded media. That includes federal tax dollars AND state dollars. In the wake of the federal “Big Beautiful Bill” which eliminated federal $$ for PBS and NPR New Mexico’s Democrats led by Gov. MLG rammed $5.6 million worth of state taxpayer funding for government media outlets through during a recent (the first) special session.

Assuming that federal funding for government media is not restored next year this will become an annual line item in New Mexico’s already bloated annual budget.

As part of our efforts to increase transparency in New Mexico government here are the salaries of employees of KNME (the Albuquerque area PBS station). Keeping in mind generous government benefits like a state pension and health care benefits (as UNM employees KNME employees are eligible for PERA), are these salaries in line with the private sector? We don’t know (we believe they are inflated), but we’d love to have your take and will publish well founded comments at this site. Send us your thoughts at: info@riograndefoundation.org

Certainly, neither our federal nor our state level tax dollars should be used to fund the operations of media outlets.