The stations got a windfall when the Bushes were in office, and they did too much hiring.  Always happens when Repubs. are in office, and in the ’60s.
But KPFA is in ‘hippie heaven’, and always makes plenty of money.  ‘Frisco area is about the most lefty place in the country, one of the most in the world, they support their lefty radio station.
When they have had money problems it’s because overextension and/or mismanagement.
It has had to subsidize the other stations (and Pacifica Radio Archives and National Office) most of its life, except for sometimes KPFK.
KPFT does many things with tech, and spends less on staff.  They are wise enough not to program too Lefty in high listening times,, and live within their means mostly.
We need KPFA but they are too willing to spend money as they see fit, because they somewhat subsidize the rest of us.
Why do they do things?  Because they can.
KPFA never needs to downsize probably, but KPFK and the others do.  The CPB requires 5 full time equivalents at each station.
In programming, stations need a mix of paid staff and volunteers.  Some of KPFK’s paid staff well pay for themselves in fundraising, some don’t.
Managers in the past let some paid staff go.  IMHO K needs to go back to using some volunteer board-ops and newsies and other tasks.  
When I hired on, everyone was a Department Head, with only volunteers for Department workers.  We had only 5 full time equivalents.  We made $2000 a day, on a good day.  Of course that was in 1985, now it would be $4766.  We were in the midst of a bad disaster, which showed in the programming.
I lived without a refrigerator, I know how to downsize.
While Pacifica Radio Archives is in KPFK”S building, it should share their expenses.  It should fix its website so that it would make money, not drain it off, like WBAI.  BAI is in terrible shape.  They have bad smug attitude problems.
Pac. should deal with its bad smug and elitist attitudes.
Some shows stay on because they are such a community service, even tho they don’t make much in fundraising, including news.  Judge one case at a time.
Put the National Office back in KPFK’s building, have them share the costs, make it harder for KPFA and National to bypass due process to spend network money.When I hired on, National and the archives together had about 5 FTEs.  S.