Airport finances and leases

During the quarterly meeting of the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board on Dec. 11, the current state of the airport fund and concerns of funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were heavily discussed. Saratoga Town Council member Jon Nelson updated the members of the airport advisory board on the progress of the airport fund and expressed his concern about an expense of $1,000 coded to the airport fund.

In addition to discussions of finances, the advisory board was asked by Saratoga resident and hangar owner David Worthington about possible changes to the minimum standards.

Financial Questions

As the advisory board went over the financial report from the Town of Saratoga, Chairman Lance Grubb asked about progress with James Childress on resolving the deficit fund balance for the airport.

“In terms of reconciling all the enterprise accounts? What we decided at that meeting was that his immediate focus and priority was going to be to work on year end financials to get things to a point where the auditors … can start their field work and then, after that process was complete, he was going to start going back through and trying to reconcile some of the previous years in other accounts,” said Nelson

Nelson added that Childress had been in discussion with Carver, Florek & James, the Certified Public Accountants whom the Town of Saratoga had engaged with earlier this year. According to the council member, the auditors had informed him that the audit might take until the end of the month and possibly run into January. He added that he had given a similar report to John Sweeny of the FAA and that Sweeny had concerns about the town’s financial health.

“He expressed some concern about the fact that we decided to go design only because we couldn’t justify the $80,000 for the full construction grant,” Nelson said. “So, the conversation was just kind of ‘I’m hearing these things, do I need to be worried?’ and I said, ‘No, there’s nothing to worry about yet, but if I get any information that warrants you guys being worried that we’ve done something … I will let you know.’”

According to Nelson, Sweeny had informed him that the airport fund being in the red was not a concern of the FAA. What was a concern of the FAA was if funds generated at the airport were being used elsewhere. If it were discovered that airport generated funds were being used in other places, it would put the Town of Saratoga and the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board in non-compliance and cause funding to be halted.

“He asked me if I thought it was necessary for the FAA to conduct an audit. I told him I did not think it was necessary at this point, but I also assured him that if I became aware of anything I would contact him so we could deal with it head-on,” said Nelson. “He agreed that, if the Town is open with the FAA about any discrepancies, the process of working our way out of non-compliance would go a lot smoother and any disruption of funding would be a lot shorter.”

As discussion continued, Nelson informed the airport advisory board about $1,000 that had been coded to the airport fund. According to Nelson, the expense, paid to Pine Cove Consulting, had originally been coded to seven different departments when approved by the town council. 

“The long and short of it is that, the $1,000 expenditure came from a split of a Pine Cove bill between Town Hall and the airport,” Nelson said. “What I think is an airport board issue is the fact that $1,000 of a Pine Cove bill was expended to the airport fund and there wasn’t any work that was done from that invoice for the airport.”

Nelson added the explanation he was given centered around the airport historically not sharing the expenses that were shared by other departments within the town government and that the revenue generating from the landing fees could be used to offset what the Town is spending on the airport.

“I’m uncomfortable with it. I don’t know enough about it, personally. I understand the concept of paying back for something that we did in the past but, to me, there needs to be some sort of specific amount, specific invoice that indicates that bare minimum. I think the idea of landing fees ever being used for anything other than the airport, it’s pretty obvious it can’t happen,” said Grubb.

“I’m concerned about it. I’m concerned about it on a couple levels. With our current financial situation and FAA scrutiny, the last thing we need is some little thing like this creating problems for us. My thought on this is we need to be very clear about what we’re doing and if there’s a bill that comes in, it needs to come to the airport board,” said Ladd Sanger, advisory board member. “The airport board needs to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it and then it gets paid, it goes through the process and we have it documented and we’re transparent about it.”

Sanger added that he believed that the $1,000 coded to the airport could cause more issues than what it was worth in regards to loss of funding from the FAA for future projects. Bob Maddox, fixed base operator for Shively Airfield, suggested the advisory board request a refund from the Town of Saratoga.

Further discussion led to Sanger stating that procedures should be put in place in regards to airport finances going forward. Nelson informed the advisory board that he would share any airport finances with the board in advance of town council meetings. 

Minimum Standards

Along with discussion about the airport finances, the airport advisory board also discussed the possibility of changes to the minimum standards for Shively Airfield. The discussion came about as a question from Worthington under items from the public as to whether there would be changes.

“At this moment we’re not, not that we won’t address that at some point, but at this moment we’re not working through those,” Grubb said.

Sanger informed Worthington that he believed the minimum standards should be looked at in context with the master plan. While the master plan isn’t due for an update until 2024, Dave Shultz of Sage Civil Engineering stated there had been some discussion about revising the master plan at an earlier date due to changes at the airport.

Worthington followed up by asking about the advisory board’s thoughts on the subleasing of hangars. Grubb stated that the most recent changes to the ground leases for hangars had included language for subleasing and had been struck by the town attorney.

“I want to know, in the future, if next month if someone approaches one of our private hangar owners and says, ‘We’d like to store our aircraft in that hangar’ are we allowed? Do we have your permission? Because that was in the old lease, but I was never given permission. Are we allowed to do it at this time?” asked Worthington.

Nelson informed Worthington that, without guidance from Tom Thompson, he would advise anyone to follow the language in the lease, which dictates that hangar owners request permission from the advisory board and the town council.

“So, that would be to submit a written request with the details about what the sub-lessee would want to do for our review and then we’d either recommend it or not recommend it to the council. I think that’s how that process would work,” said Nelson.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board will be at 3:30 p.m. on March 11 at Saratoga Town Hall.