FAA Grants Minimum to New Airport
The local press and airport PR crowd has hailed the $72 Million FAA grant for the new airport. This is a substantial grant, but it is far less than the $95 Million requested, and of lesser financial quality for bonding purposes. Why? Because FAA agreed with us critics who questioned the Benefit-Cost Analysis. In the grant letter, FAA rejects the BCA and turns to a “baseline-budgeting” rationale, granting only the funds it would have spent on the present airport over the next few years. In the never-never land of federal spending this is as close to “zero support” as it gets. Quoting the grant letter, “… FAA’s review of this data for funding purposes revealed the replacement airport project only provides slight capacity gains. “ ,,, “Therefore, FAA’s analysis for funding purposes was based on supporting those capital projects (in particular the runway safety areas) that would be necessary for continued safe operaton of the current airport. Under this approach, consideration of the BCA was discontinued.”
FAA is getting a sweet financial deal: by allowing the airport board to sacrifice the community airport and the Florida taxpayer to assume the construction overrun and market risk of the new airport, FAA avoids any additional cost for duplicating traffic control and navigation aids, and avoids funding one extra dime from its Airport Improvement Fund.
Incidentally, FAA has discredited the claim that improving the present airport would cost over $150 Million - the airport’s consultants have been proven 100% wrong again ($72 Million vs. $150 Million), but they continue to pocket millions in fees.