PLANS USE FUEL TAX FOR AIRPORT FUNDING

With federal funding for airports having declined or been eliminated entirely in recent years, aviation boosters have been casting about for revenue to continue operating control towers such as the one at Cape Girardeau's airport. These officials are looking to state government to fill the gap and are advancing what appears a reasonable means of producing the needed revenue. They want the state to earmark money from the state sales tax on jet fuel to help fund the more than 100 general aviation airports in Missouri. Excepted from this plan would be Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and Kansas City International Airport.

Senate Bill 813, introduced by state Sen. Franc Flotron, R-St. Louis, would authorize the state to put jet-fuel sales tax revenue into the aviation trust fund to provide matching funds for airport projects. It would also help fund air traffic control towers no longer funded by the federal government. Cape Girardeau and Jefferson City both fund air traffic control towers that previously were financed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Under Flotron's bill, the state would pay half the cost of those tower operations, up to a maximum of $125,000 per tower. The bill would limit spending to $500,000 per airport.

Another bill, Senate Bill 864, is sponsored by state Sen. Jerry Howard, D-Dexter. SB 864 would earmark this fuel tax money for airports, but it wouldn't require local matches or put limits on the amount the state could spend on airport projects and towers.

Backers of the bills, such as Cape airport manager Bruce Loy and Bob Stuart, who manages the airport in Malden, stress that Missouri's airports don't get back any of the approximately $14 million annual revenue from jet-fuel sales taxes. Since the federal cutbacks, many outstate Missouri airports are struggling.

Something like the approaches of Flotron and Howard makes good sense. Either would have the appeal of harnessing the familiar user fee concept of fuel taxes, directing this revenue stream into supporting the infrastructure necessary to aviation. Here's hoping the General Assembly can include this approach in this year's budget, generating a few million dollars for aviation in a $15 billion state budget.