Another tenant is moving to the Sullivan Airport. A local Franklin County resident, with a St.
Clair address is moving out due to the high hangar rates, taxiway conditions,
and lack of fuel on the field. This
leaves four tenants. The management practices
of the city will no doubt cause the airport to lose money, and become a burden
to the taxpayers of the city. This will
bring the income down to about $8500 a year.
This will not cover the insurance cost, let alone any of the other
expenses. In 2008 the airport had an
income of $33,000. It only took Ron Blum
five years to total ruin the airport. No
matter what the city says or prints in the newspaper, the actions by the city
tell the real story.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
AIRPORT SUSTAINABILITY
It has been often been told and repeated over and over, and
also published in the local news publication, that the airport has never shown
a profit, according to city records. To objectively look at this, you have to take
a serious look at the city records.
In 2002 the city
records show a gross income of $29,605.37, and expenses of $15,334.08. Both the old and the new math will tell you
this is $14,271.29 of profit.
In 2003 the airport shows a gross income of $19,015.82, and
expenses of $4,509.88, and $14,505.94 of profit. . (In
2002 the city had $5203 of bad aviation fuel.
It went bad after sitting in the tank for too long, and the city could
not sell it as 100LL aviation fuel.
After several months the fuel disappeared, no one knows where it went,
the tank was emptied. If this would be
included in the city records, and the airport would be compensated for the
fuel, the profit would be $19,475.24 for 2002, for a
total profit of $33,981.18 for 2002 and 2003.)
These numbers will tell anyone that the repeated statements
that the airport has never shown a profit, are just plain untrue.
In 2004 the City records show airport expenses were
$26,356.18 with income at $18,196.03, which will show an $8,160.15 loss for the
airport. Included in the expenses was $3,635.50 for engineering for the AIP funding. This expense should have been paid for by the
AIP Grant, but the city was unaware that the expenses qualified for grant
funding. The city also spent $8,799.50
in repairs to the airport that had gone overlooked in the past. This also included $10,000 to St. Clair Aviation
for airport management contract that included the grass mowing at the
airport. To correct for the engineering expense, that
would put the airport profit at $29,456.53 for 02, 03, and 04. We have heard over and over again that the
city could not afford to pay someone $30,000 a year to sit at the airport to
pump gas. The fact of the matter is that only happened in
two year 05, 06, which by the way also included grass mowing of the airport,
something that the city had neglected to do.
In 2005 things get interesting.
The city records show a gross
income of $16,126.75, and expenses of $121,119.11, for a loss of
$104,992.36. This includes $30,000 for
Buzz and the airport contract. $3,118.70
in more engineering expense and $4,766.76 in MIRMA cost. What is so different here is that these
figures include a cost called MODOT $72,648.89.
(More on this later.) Without the
corrections for the engineering, but correcting the MIRMA cost, and the MODOT
cost, the airport shows a profit of $5,343.66 for 02,03,04,05.
In 2006 there are more corrections that need to be addressed. The expenses are shown as $468,071.00 and
income at $25,303.00 and show a loss of $442,768.00. This includes a cost of $398,051.00 to
MODOT. Also included is an expense for
Airevac for $23,298.00 and equipment repair for $10,044.00 which includes
expenses for the helipad constructed for Airevac. After
correcting the above the airport would show a loss of $6,758.34 for
02,03,04,05,06.
In 2007 city records show a gross income of $21,570.00 and
expenses of $ $51,675.38 for a loss of
$30,105.38. These expenses also show a
cost for MODOT for $23,642.48, and additional engineering expense of $2,110.55. For the years 02 through 07 the airport would
show a loss of $15,398.04.
In 2008 the gross income was $33,005.00 and expenses were
$62,128.00 for a loss of $29,123. This
includes another MODOT expense of $55,364.00.
With corrections for the MODOT grant, this should show a profit of $25,581,
giving the airport a profit of $10,182.96 for the years of 02 to 08.
In the year 09 through 12, the city started to contract out the
grass mowing, and started to charge the airport for MIRMA coverage. The MIRMA cost for those years was $28,077.15. The city started to charge this much for
insurance when they found out that they could not keep the airport revenue in
the general revenue account of the city.
The $553,955.21 in MODOT expenses were not expenses, they were the AIP
grant funds paid out by MODOT. The city
portion of the AIP contract was around $29,600 which should have been charged
off to a capitol improvements account and depreciated over 20 years at $1390
per year. Mirma cost should be $785 per
year, and correcting for the rent the city paid the airport for the maintenance
hangar and other items for Airevac expense, the operating profit for the
airport, if accounted for under generally accepted accounting practices would
show a profit for the years of 02 to 12, of $25,692.57.
To take the city records at their face value without examination
of the expense items to get a true picture of the airport financial situation
is just plain wrong. To publicly make
claims about the profitability of the airport without care full examination of
the figures, is irresponsible and unprofessional.
The airport will no doubt show a loss for 2013, due to the
management practices of the city. The
examination of these management practices show that one of two things is
happening, the city is completely incapable of managing an airport, or the city
is operating the airport with the intention of forcing it into an unprofitable
situation to further its case for closure.
The following is from a letter by MoDOT to the city on Sept 23,
2010.
In
reviewing information provided by the complainant, the City has presumably
charged for insurance in some years and some years has not. Our office would
recommend that the City of St. Clair have further
discussions with other municipalities that have airports that do not sell fuel
and determine how those municipalities establish their insurance costs for the
airport. This will
allow the City to develop an annual
reasonable cost far airport insurance that is consistent in terms of actual
cost compared to value received. This will also enhance the airport budget planning process.
The city did not follow this recommendation,
but when eight other municipalities similar to St. Clair, were polled, they
replied that they did not charge the airport for insurance due to the fact that
they did not have any payroll at their airport.
The letter also went on to say;
Airport
Sustainability
The
MoDOT Aviation Section is participating with other aviation industry
representatives in the preparation of a guidebook to assist political
subdivisions in the development of a General Aviation Airport Business Plan .A
business plan can assist airport owners in the short and long term
sustainability of the airport and can allow the airport to respond accordingly
in financially challenging times. Once the study is completed, our office will
forward you a copy,
Based
on information provided by the City for their 2009 revenue and expenses for the airport,
it is possible for the airport to sustain itself if management and operational
practices were executed in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration
guidelines and circulars and in compliance with federal grant obligations. Our
office is available to assist the City with any questions related to the
airport and can provide FAA documents related to compliance with federal grant
assurances.
Our
office will await the submittal of the requested information in this letter:
Please feel free to contact our office if you should have any’ questions.
In this letter MoDOT concluded
that the airport could support itself.
The city made no attempt to resolve this issue, or reply to MoDOT with any
information.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
NO BENEFIT TO THE COMMUNITY
Since I can not longer cut and paste from the Missourian, I
can only post a link.
Supporters of the Washington Airport inside the Missourian
have posted an editorial. What is sad is
that it only refers to the Washington airport.
The statistics the article quote refer to all airports in Missouri. The difference between the airports at Washington
and St. Clair? Management!!!! At Washington you have someone that wants to
see the airport developed into an asset for the city and surrounding area. In St. Clair, the management wants to destroy
the airport, and remove it from the face of the earth, and will break many
state and federal laws to do it.
NONE OF THE PILOTS AT THE AIRPORT LIVE IN ST CLAIR
This phrase has become the war cry of the city and the
newspaper. It has been used as a reason to
enforce the idea that the airport should go away. It has been used without an explanation. What difference does it make to anyone where
airport tenants live? The FAA has
regulations against residency preferential treatment, when it comes to
Federally Funded Airports. But then, no
one that lives in St. Clair would know that.
The continued publishing of this phrase
is intended to do one thing, to make the tenants of the airport appear as bad
people. The tenants are costing the taxpayer’s
money. It is an attempt to divert attention from what
the city is doing to destroy the airport, and place blame on the tenants. But like Adolf said, “If you are going to
lie, make it big, simple, and repeat it over and over, and eventually people
will believe it.”
But the best thing about this phrase is that its finger
points in every direction. Rumors and I
repeat RUMORS are that Ron Blum has moved to Sullivan, with all the other
previous airport tenants. If you can
come up with something as stupid as “you don’t have to pay taxes on it if you
don’t use it”, this should produce something even better.
Comments by the city administration like we have seen over
the airport, and the personal property issue, go to show the Ron Blum must have
a very low opinion of the intelligence of his constituents to think that everyone will believe this crap. But then everyone knows that Ron is smarter
than everyone else.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
MORE PROPPELLER DAMAGE
The latest incident was on Monday.
To date there has been 4 events that have involved propeller damage
at the St. Clair regional Airport in the last several years. Two have been minor, one involved
replacement of the propeller blades, and one required factory repairs. This
will probably continue, and end up costing the city money due to an increase in
insurance premiums. The city seems to be
reluctant to do any repairs to the taxiway; after all they are going to close
the airport, right? We heard this in 06,
eight years ago. The city still has to come with a workable
plan, and according to the FAA people in K.C. the plan that they think they can
go with, has “no support” in the entire FAA organization. As the city continues to drag this out, the
damage to aircraft will continue, and the insurance will continue to cost the
city money. Propellers are extremely expensive,
and rock strikes are extremely hazardous, they operate at supersonic speeds
during takeoff. Replacement cost of two
of the propellers on the field could be as high as $15,000.
The city can ignore this as long as they want, but propellers
on other aircraft that have used St. Clair in the last couple of years, cost in
excesses of $30,000. Not to mention a
jet engine sucking up a rock.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Airfield Appears to Be In Good Repair
This is from the MoDOT safety inspection
that was done prior to the FAA suspending its consideration of the St. Clair
closure request. This was not done in
response to the complaint filed by the tenants.
The remark “Airfield Appears to Be In Good Repair” refers to the
airside portion of the development, which is everything on the runway side of
the hold short line. This does not refer
to the landside portion of the airport property. The one major item in the report, one of the
very few, is the condition of the common use taxiway. This taxiway is in horrible condition, and is
causing damage to aircraft, for which the city is responsible.
City financial records will show that no
money has been spent on airport taxiway maintenance. City financial records will also show that
the city has not spent any money on the removal of trees from the approaches,
which has been an item on three previous MoDOT inspections.
City financial records also show that approximately
$70,000 to $80,000 of depreciation expense being charged to the airport. The city was asked for the information on
this, including the asset that was being depreciated, the date the asset was acquired,
and the value of the asset. The response
was that they did not know, but it appeared that it was being charge towards a
1.6 million runway in the 90’s.
The city financial records from the mid
90’s do not show any improvements made to the airport for 1.6 million dollars.
The city financial records show that the
city is charging the airport for %5 of the city insurance cost, when asked for
the documentation to show this cost, the city stated that this documentation does
not exist.
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