The Valley PBS studios in Downtown Fresno are seen in this Google Street View image

Fresno public television station Valley PBS must pay a $38,946 fine and repay $300,000 as part of an audit conducted by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Jeff Aiello, president and CEO of Valley PBS since May 2021, announced the sanctions in an email to viewers Friday. They stem from an audit of the station’s operations and financial reporting from July 2019 to June 2021, which found “several errors and misconduct-in-practices by former station management,” Aiello said.

The result is the nearly $39,000 fine and repayment of nearly $300,000 in federal grants later this year, he said.

The audit was conducted by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the nonprofit that distributes federal funding to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations in the U.S.

Valley PBS receives about $900,000 per year from the CPB, Aiello said, using it for “big-ticket operational costs such as paying yearly PBS dues.”

Aiello said most of the issues discovered in the audit had to do with a lack of understanding of CPB grant rules, over-reporting of funding beyond federal grants and business practices and accounting “that lacked the transparency and detail needed by the CPB.”

“As I’ve said to our friends at the CPB in charge of this audit, I’m personally thankful Valley PBS went through this process,” Aiello said. “It needed to happen. Weak management and outdated business practices needed the full focus of an audit like this to get Valley PBS back on the right track.”

Aiello said the money would be withheld from Valley PBS’s 2023 CPB Community Service Grant and would not impact operational cash or come from viewer donations.

Valley PBS presented to CPB a slate of corrective actions it would undertake, including outsourcing its main financial accounting to NETA Business Center, which specializes in CPB reporting.

“While this was a difficult chapter in the history of Valley PBS, it was long needed and, I’m happy to report, it was a process that has ended with a renewed trust and understanding between the station and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Aiello said.

An email seeking details about the audit was not returned by the CPB press office Friday afternoon.