KRPS was vulnerable prior to Rescission Passage, Congressional Canceling of CPB Grant ensures stations operation more challenging

KRPS | By Fred Fletcher-Fierro

Published July 20, 2025 at 4:24 PM CDT

Pictured is KRPS's first General Manager, Frank Baker standing in front of Shirk. The building was originally constructed in 1958 as a men's only dorm and renovated in 1988 to house KRPS.

According to a recent report titled, “NPR and PBS Are More Than “Tiny Desk” and “Daniel Tiger” They Are Critical to Public Safety” KRPS is among 79 public radio and television stations across 34 states and territories that are considered vulnerable to federal funding cuts.

KRPS’s statement regarding Congressional passage of H.R. 4 The Rescissions Act of 2025

Last week's decision by Congress to rescind or claw back 1.1 billion dollars of previously approved funding for public media was unprecedented. It was the first time in 30 years that Congress had approved a rescission of funds, and never for public media, despite numerous threats by Republican administrations. Even before the decision last week, KRPS was already on a list of vulnerable public media stations according to a recently released report.

Congressional Republicans made it clear in their testimony, whether it be in the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Or during DOGE subcommittee testimony in March, where Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Green (R) said, “NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical, Left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy, white, urban liberals and progressives, who generally look down on and judge rural America.”

NPR, not member stations, were always the target. However, the rescission cuts that all four of the Senators from Kansas and Missouri (Marshall, Moran, Schmidt &Hawley) voted in favor of will have minimal impact on NPR. The cuts are directly targeted at local public radio stations, whether they are affiliated with NPR or not.

Ahead of the rescission vote, KRPS made several programming changes so that we could prepare for what’s ahead of us and lessen the financial burden on our licensee, Pittsburg State University. There is a possibility for further programming changes.

For now, KRPS will continue to sound like you’ve come to expect it to with shows like Morning Edition & All Things Considered, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, This American Life, and Travel with Rick Steves. However, listener support and engagement are needed now more than ever.

On behalf of the KPRS staff, thank you for your support, both now and into the future.

KRPS GM

Fred Fletcher-Fierro