The face of public radio in Iowa may soon be changing.

At its December meeting in Ames, the Board of Regents will review a proposal from a consultant hired by the state’s public radio stations — WOI Radio Group at Iowa State, WSUI/KSUI at the University of Iowa and KUNI/KHKE at the University of Northern Iowa. The proposal is slated to outline how the three stations can better collaborate and pool their resources in the future, said WOI General Manager Bill McGinley.

“With all the budget cuts going on, last year WOI lost about $240,000 in state-allocated funds,” he said.

“The other stations stand to lose money, too. We’ve already started working together on a few things, but this proposal will help us figure out how to do more collaboration.”

McGinley said he doesn’t know the contents of the report, but he gave his ideas to the Tucson-based consulting firm Bornstein and Associates during the first part of its research.

“I know the things I talked about with them, but I don’t know how much of that they are using, what they will change,” McGinley said.

“The managers of the other stations are in same boat we are.”

The stations have already begun to collaborate on some things, McGinley said, like the Talk of Iowa radio show and Des Moines Statehouse reporters. The two-hour Talk of Iowa radio show used to be two shows separately produced by WOI and Iowa’s WSUI. Recently, the two stations decided to work together to make one show, which McGinley said provides more in-depth information and entertainment to listeners.

Also, instead of both WOI and Northern Iowa’s KUNI sending a reporter to the Statehouse during Iowa Legislative sessions, a two-person bureau that started last winter sends updates on legislative activities to all three radio stations.

The changes will most likely benefit WOI and the other stations even though it may require shuffling of resources or cuts at the radio stations, McGinley said.

“It seems to me that anything that would bring the three regents radio operations together in a way that would maximize resources to bring better public radio to people of Iowa is a good thing,” he said.

Barb Boose, communications specialist for the Board of Regents, said the proposal will not be available to the public until Dec. 7, when the agenda for the regents meeting is posted on its Web site.

“Not even the regents know what’s in this report; they haven’t been involved throughout the whole process,” Boose said.