Warsaw Municipal Airport Manager Nick King, left, answers questions from the Kosciusko County Council Thursday on a city-county airport authority. The council tabled the issue until 2024 by a vote of 4-2, with Councilwoman Kathleen Groninger abstaining. Also pictured are County Council members Dave Wolkins, center, and Sue Ann Mitchell, right.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — In an unexpected move Thursday, the Kosciusko County Council tabled a resolution on moving the Warsaw Municipal Airport from a board of aviation commissioners to a city-county airport authority until 2024.

Councilman Dave Wolkins made the motion to table the issue, Councilman Tony Ciriello seconded it and the motion was passed 4-2 with Councilwoman Kathleen Groninger abstaining. Also voting in favor of the motion were Sue Ann Mitchell and President Mike Long. Councilwomen Kimberly Cates and Joni Truex voted against it.

In February, the Warsaw BOAC voted to recommend to the Warsaw Common Council that the airport authority move forward. The city council approved a resolution March 20 approving the authority. On April 6, Airport Manager Nick King, along with city and state officials, gave a presentation to the county council on the authority during a listening session, with public comments also being taken. No action was taken on April 6.

An airport authority is an independent entity charged with the operation and oversight of an airport or group of airports. The city-county airport authority would be supported by a countywide tax instead of a city tax and be governed by a six-member board — three appointed by the mayor and three by the county commissioners. The city and county councils would have oversight over the authority’s annual budget. The most the tax rate could be would be 3.9 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, but city representatives had said they weren’t expecting that much, maybe half.

Thursday night, the airport authority was again on the county council’s agenda.

“Essentially, what we’re going to do tonight is, since we had our presentation last week, we’ll ask Nick to come up and, if the council members have any additional questions they’d like to ask of Nick or any additional explanations or comments you might have,” Long said, they can ask him.

Wolkins asked if all the work that needs to be done at the airport — runways, taxiways, etc. — “had they not been done because you have not had the money to match?”

King responded, “No. They’ve not been done because they did not hit the minimum criteria needed to resurface or rehabilitate those pavements until now.”

He said the airport has a pavement condition index that is done by the state every three years. “We use the pavement condition index with the FAA to grade our pavement to all of the other asphalt on all airports throughout the state. The state of Indiana is given — I think it’s $19.5 million — from the FAA for general aviation airports, like a Warsaw, Wabash, Goshen, Plymouth to name a few. And then INDOT, FAA and the airport split together a statewide plan on who is receiving those funds.”

On top of the funds are two pots of money, he said. Airports of Warsaw’s size receive $150,000 a year that it can roll over up to five years. With the airport’s match, state’s match and the federal match — that funding is called “NPE dollars — that gives the Warsaw Airport approximately $880,000. King said they also will supplement that with the Warsaw Improvement Program dollars.

“All of that being said, there’s a giant spreadsheet that INDOT aviation office maintains to see who needs the repavement the most. As I stated in my presentation, we have been able to maintain our asphalt to a very high level of maintenance for its life. We’ve been awarded multiple times by state organization Aviation Indiana for having the best maintained oldest pavement in the state, and it is just at the end of its life and needs to be repaved at this time,” King explained.

Wolkins asked how long the Instrument Landing System has been out at the airport. King said the ILS has been at the airport since around 1986 or 1987.

“It is still operational. One piece is missing, that is the glide slope. It has been out for about 18 months,” King said. The airport thought they would be able to fix it with some parts scavenged from other systems that have gone down across the U.S., but were not able to. Two of the three parts of the ILS are still in operation. Wolkins asked if the cost to replace the ILS was the $1.2 million cost King has previously presented, and King said that was ballpark and would have to be paid for through local funding.

Wolkins then commented on why he was not in favor of the airport authority at this time.

“I probably had more contact on this issue in the last few days, especially since yesterday since the taxes went out. There is never a good time to raise taxes, but there are better times and I don’t think this is the time to do it,” Wolkins stated, adding that there are a lot of things in play right now.

He said the main focus of it was to get the airport enough money to operate and “fix up the airport to make it a better facility.” Wolkins said there was no question the airport is an asset to the community, but he’s had people tell him they don’t use the airport. He said people haven’t bought into the idea the orthopedic companies use the airport and employ local people and their employees have good homes and pay lots of taxes.

“There still needs to be a lot of selling before we go to it,” Wolkins said. “Personally, I don’t like the idea of an airport authority. I don’t like creating another board that has taxing power.”

He said even if the tax rate started at $0.02 per $100 of assessed valuation, instead of the maximum $0.039, the way of government was to increase that rate.

“I would do whatever we can to get enough money for that airport, but I think we, as a county, should buy in. Representative (Craig) Snow made the comment the state wants the county to buy-in at some point. I don’t know that that has to be an airport authority. I think we need to look at an interlocal agreement, a memorandum of understanding. I think we could figure out a way to get them the money they need to improve that airport without establishing an airport authority,” Wolkins said.

He also has a problem with the 3-3 designation for the authority board, but acknowledged that could be changed down at the statehouse.

Wolkins then made a motion to table the matter at this time until they can explore other opportunities to get the airport the money it needs. There was some discussion on whether or not the motion needed a date set on it, and Wolkins finally consented to tabling it until 2024. Ciriello seconded the motion

Mitchell then asked, since the city approved a resolution to approve the authority, will the city council have to go back later and approve another resolution if it’s decided to go forward with the authority. King said yes as the city’s resolution was good for 60 days.

In abstaining from the vote on the motion, Groninger read a statement on why she abstained. She said she spoke to legal counsel and was informed that, although not a legal conflict-of-interest, one of her husband’s business entities could potentially benefit from the airport expansion so in an “abundance of caution,” she was abstaining. Her husband is County Commissioner Cary Groninger.

Later in the meeting, resident Debra Hathaway asked about CR 100E and what was happening with that.

King said there’s been many questions to the airport and confusion about CR 100E and the airport authority and if the two are interlinked.

“The 100 East project is actually a safety issue that has been brought to the airport by the FAA. Whether we extend that runway or not, as 100 East sits that is a safety issue for both the public driving on 100 East and the pilots and passengers currently operating out of the airport. So that is a known issue that we are in the middle of a phase I study,” he said.

While the airport is trying to push for a tunnel underneath the road, King said all options for that road are still on the table. It is a project involving the FAA.

Long said his additional comment he would have on an airport authority was, “I want to be clear to the business industry in the county that we’re not slamming the door on this. It’s a possibility. We just are saying we need time, we need to take a step back and look at this thing to really explore any avenues that are available that we may not be even aware of today.”

Asked after the council meeting for his reaction of the county tabling the matter until next year, King said, “I was hoping for a different outcome, but we will keep working toward 2024 and hopefully answer some more questions and have a more positive outcome in 2024.”