Doing the right thing has a cost

Since last October, Al Maloney has been a part of the Indy team as an AmeriCorps service member.

On April 25, DOGE gutted the AmeriCorps program.

On May 1, Al joined the Independent as our full-time production manager.

Hiring Al was an easy decision: In just seven months, they’ve become indispensable to our operations. Losing them would put a serious strain on our ability to maintain our current level of productivity.

Here’s an incomplete list of what Al does at the Independent:

Final proofreading and posting of news articles to the website.
Assembling The Bulletin Board and The Scoop newsletters, including updating our lists of government and community meetings and community resources.
Creating and scheduling social media posts.
Entering and posting obituaries, letters to the editor and announcements.
Monitoring activity in over a dozen ongoing court cases we’re following.

Without Al, those tasks would fall back to me, Dani and Keri — which would mean less time for reporting and editing. Operationally, hiring Al was a no-brainer.

We also simply felt that it was the right thing to do. For nearly 60 years, AmeriCorps members have helped nonprofit, faith-based and other community organizations — particularly those in impoverished areas — fulfill our missions. They’ve had our backs; it’s only fair to have theirs.

But the move isn’t without risk. With payroll taxes and healthcare, a full-time position at the Indy costs over $48,000 per year. That’s about a third of our carryover from 2024 — a cushion built in part on grants that we won’t get again this year.

You rely on us for great journalism. We rely on Al to make that work possible. I hope we can rely on you to ensure that going out on a limb to hire them wasn’t only the right thing to do – but an important milestone in our work toward operational sustainability.

We’re asking you to please donate today if you can, to make sure we can continue to deliver the high-quality journalism you’ve come to depend upon.