Oct 17, 2008 6:03 pm US/Eastern
Budget Cuts Threaten Radio For The Blind
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The reality of deep budget cuts is slowly sinking in across the state. WBZ's Ron Sanders went to the south shore where a non-profit group that has been helping blind people for decades is suddenly losing a huge amount of its state funding.
Ron Bersani runs the Talking Information Center radio network, which he started 30 years ago and which serves 20,000 blind and visually-impaired listeners.
The network broadcasts books, newspapers, magazines, supermarket and department store ads as well as educational services. The cuts announced by Gov. Deval Patrick this week include more than half of the Talking Information Center's budget.
"I think it's going to be difficult, you know, we're probably going to have some layoffs, we will definitely have some cuts in salary and staff," said Bersani.
After he talked with Quincy officials about the economy and budget, we asked Patrick what can be done now for services such as the Talking Information Center:
"Generally, we are all having to improvise right now...and in communities, people are going to have to step up and act like members of the community and that means contributing their time and their private money and their support in ways that they can as well," suggested Patrick.
Bersani does not want to panic his listeners and says, "We're going to try to maintain the same level of service but it will be extremely difficult to staff the station weekends, off-hours, nights, we will have to see to wait and see how it plays out."
He says he hopes philanthropists and others will step forward to help keep this service on the air; but he also hopes they help other services impacted by the budget cuts.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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