Airport board considers asking cities to contribute to its $1.2 million budget

Texarkana Regional Airport is seen in December 2015.
Texarkana Regional Airport is seen in December 2015.

The Texarkana Regional Airport's Authority Board last week approved sending copies of the airport's proposed $1.2 million budget for 2018 to both cities.

Airport officials are looking at tentatively asking the airport's joint owners-Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Ark.-to contribute a proposed combined total of $168,280 to the overall projected budget.

The amount each city would contribute is based on population. Since the Texas side has about 36,000 residents (about 54.7 percent of the combined population) and the Arkansas side has about 29,900 (roughly 45.2 percent), the Texas-side's contribution is tentatively calculated to be about $92,150 while the Arkansas-side's comes in at about $76,130. Both calculations are tentative because the Texas side won't approve its fiscal year budget until close to Sept. 30 and the Arkansas side won't be approving its calendar year budget until year's end. The total combined $168,280 request represents about a $101,990 decrease from the total $270,270 the airport requested for the current year's budget. The Texas side put in $148,050 while the Arkansas side portion wound up being $122,220.

Apart from the cities' contributions, much of the rest of the airport's revenue for the budget is self-generated and comes from areas such as parking fees. For next year, airport officials hope to collect about $250,000 in parking fees and about another $250,000 collected from contracts with on-site car rental services.

Airport officials also anticipate collecting percentages of profit from on-site commercial aviation and jet fuel sales. This amount will be generated by a proposal to increase the airport's percentage of both aviation and jet fuel sales from 3 cents per gallon to 7 cents per gallon.

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