AIRPORT FUNDING MEASURE HELD UP; CONTROL TOWER FUNDING AT STAKE

The manager of Cape Girardeau Regional Airport wasn't thrilled to learn Missouri Senate action on a measure to provide more state funding for airports around the state was being held up Thursday night by a filibuster on a controversial desegregation bill.

"Oh, my lord," was how the manager, Bruce Loy, reacted.

Supporters of the measure to create an aviation trust fund funded by the state tax on jet fuel hope the Senate will act today.

Today is the final day of the state legislative session.

"Nothing like waiting until the last minute," Loy said. "I'll feel a lot better when it's done."

The House approved the measure Wednesday night as an amendment to another bill. The Senate had earlier approved a similar version.

Now the Senate has to either approve the House version or call for a conference to work out a compromise.

Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, reported that the Missouri Senate was "locked in a filibuster" on a controversial bill that would release $163 million in revenue originally slated for school desegregation to school programs around the state.

Sen. Sam Butler, R-Tarkio, staged the filibuster.

"I'm hoping we'll get to it" today, Kinder said Thursday night from his Jefferson City office.

Loy said he was "extremely excited" by the notion the funding could become a reality.

Final passage would mean the state's reimbursing up to $125,000 a year for operation of the control tower at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

That's almost 100 percent of the cost of operating the tower, Loy said. The city now pays that cost, which was previously funded by the federal government.

"It's like picking a $125,000 bill up off the sidewalk," he said.

The measure to provide additional funding for Missouri's general aviation airports passed in the House Wednesday night as an add on to another bill, said state Rep. Larry Thomason, D-Kennett, the chief sponsor of the House bill and co-chairman of the House's Motor Vehicle Committee.

The Senate had already easily passed the measure earlier this month.

The measure has to go back to the Senate since there are differences between the House and Senate versions, Thomason said.

"I don't think that'll be a problem," he said, adding final approval of the funding package "looks real promising."

The House version included a cap of up to $5 million in jet fuel-tax revenue to be allocated annually to the Missouri Department of Transportation. It also stipulates the funding would only be allocated to the Missouri Department of Transportation until 2003.

The measure would allocate revenue generated by the state tax on jet fuel to MoDOT to provide grants for general aviation airports such as Cape Girardeau's.

The jet fuel-tax money goes into the state's general revenue fund.

This year, $6.1 million in federal funding and approximately $650,000 in state funding are available for capital improvements at general aviation airports, Loy said.

The jet fuel-tax revenue will add another $4 million to $5 million to that pot, Loy said, and the state's Total Transportation Commission has estimated Missouri's airports need $11 million a year for needed capital improvements.

"If we can keep the feds at the same level, we're right on the dot" with the additional state funding, Loy said.

The city is seeking state grants for three projects: an updated airport master plan for $70,000; construction of a new hangar and ramp for $400,000; and a backup generator for runway lighting for $60,000.

The additional money won't guarantee funding of those projects, Loy said, but it does mean more lower-priority projects will be funded.

The funds will benefit more than 110 general aviation airports around the state, Thomason said.

"It's real positive for Cape and for all of Southeast Missouri. We have a lot of community airports," he said.

Thomason said the funding will be a boon for economic development by providing funding for a variety of types of improvements at airports around the state.

"The thing that to me is most important is industry today requires of smaller communities that they have an airport to attract industry and new jobs," he said.

Without the jet fuel-tax revenue, MoDOT had little funding available for grants for general aviation airports.

Approval of the funding is "not only wonderful for us from a tower standpoint, but tremendously important to general aviation throughout the state of Missouri," said John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

The airport is "unbelievably important" for economic development in the region, Mehner said.

"Many times when an industry is interested in an area, you are given a list of their minimum qualifications, and many times access to a fully functioning or commercial airport is among those qualifications," he said.