KWCW signed an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this summer to avoid court proceedings after they discovered an eight-year backlog of unfiled documents near the end of last year. The station will continue to broadcast under a limited license under supervision from the FCC.

The problem was first discovered last year, when then-General Manager Kalen Bergado ’14 realized that the renewal of the station’s broadcast license had still not been approved by the FCC several months after he filed the application. Bergado and his successor, present General Manager Nicole Holoboff, a senior, discovered that the station had filed neither the biennial ownership reports nor the quarterly program lists mandated by the FCC since its last license renewal in 2006.

Holoboff and ASWC Advisor and Director of Student Activities Leann Adams worked over the summer with Harry Cole, a lawyer from Washington, D.C.-based telecommunications law firm Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, to negotiate a compromise with the FCC.

The agreement, termed a “consent decree” by the FCC, was ultimately signed by Adams on Aug. 15. It grants KWCW a broadcasting license lasting only four years instead of the usual eight. This license was contingent on the adoption of a plan to avoid future infractions and the payment of a $1,200 “voluntary contribution” to the United States Treasury.

“Instead of waiting for something to go wrong, we just decided to take care of it now,” said Holoboff. “That was why a lawyer came into the picture, because it wasn’t anything that we felt we were capable of doing on our own.”

Adams notes that while the issue warranted careful attention, the station was never in great danger.

“It’s a big deal because KWCW is accountable to the federal government, which is pretty unusual in comparison to other student organizations, but it’s also not … a huge legal crisis, and we never considered it one,” said Adams. “We just considered it making sure we had everything back to the way it’s supposed to be.”

ASWC granted KWCW additional funds to help pay the fine as well as Cole’s fee at their Oct. 19 Senate meeting. The funds granted by ASWC totaled $13,500 and were taken from the ASWC contingency fund, the fund for travel and student development, and from excess funds typically set aside each year for the ASWC endowment fund for future use.

According to senior ASWC President Tatiana Kaehler, the expenses are far from crippling. Their budget surplus allows for plenty of elbow room in this year’s budget.

“[KWCW’s expenses] will leave us with accounts very similar to last year because we ended up having money left over in travel and student development and contingency at the end of last year, and that money rolled over to this year,” said Kaehler. “A lot of that extra money then went towards KWCW’s situation.”

KWCW also contributed 2,000 dollars from its own budget toward the costs and plans to tighten the drawstrings on its already meager purse in response. Holoboff says that the number of concerts and other events hosted by KWCW can be expected to decline this year, in part because of strains on the budget.

KWCW is not the only college station slipping behind on its paperwork. The FCC began offering consent decrees as an alternative to court proceedings in May 2013 with the practically identical case of William Penn University’s station KIGC. In the year since the adoption of that policy, at least three other college radio stations have signed consent decrees for similar offenses, including Northeastern Illinois University’s WZRD, Toccoa Falls College’s WTXR and Cazenovia College’s WITC. The FCC’s policy applies exclusively to student-run stations, whose high management turnover rates can allow for paperwork to fall through the cracks.

“The FCC … has entered into consent decrees like this with other college radio stations because they recognize they’re not after college radio stations,” said Adams.

KWCW plans to move forward with slightly increased scrutiny from the FCC and regular guidance from Adams. Holoboff and Adams plan to meet regularly to ensure that the station’s operations are running smoothly. Along with the legal work, Holoboff spent the summer restructuring and expanding KWCW’s staff and hopes that the growth will help to keep the station running smoothly.

“Since my first year here up until last year … there were a few music directors and a general manager, and that was pretty much it,” said Holoboff of the student staff. “It just wasn’t supportive enough for the general manager, and it wasn’t supportive enough to keep the momentum going for K-dub … so now we have about 14 staff members, which is really exciting. I think it’s involved way more students on campus and it’s just legitimized us … because we just have a lot more people doing a lot more jobs and creating that momentum for us.”

“K-dub is the only campus organization that has to report to some greater body, being the government,” said Holoboff. “That’s a very unique thing to K-dub, and it’s what makes KWCW awesome and really exciting and powerful on campus, but it’s also something that needs to be checked.”

Adams notes her admiration for the actions of KWCW’s leaders in addressing the legal hiccup.

Adams notes her admiration for the actions of KWCW’s leaders in addressing the legal hiccup.