Lewiston city officials are pushing north central Idaho’s only commercial passenger airport to help pay for the firefighting services it receives from the municipality.

Lewiston City Manager Alan Nygaard raised the issue at a Wednesday hearing on the $902,000 operations budget for Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

The city is prepared to give the airport $290,000 for the coming fiscal year, compared with $180,000 for this year.

Of that amount, $150,000 would be for operations and another $140,000 would be for projects such as improving security, hiring a consultant to help recruit more airlines and repairing cracks on a taxiway.

But the city, which owns the airport with Nez Perce County, will reduce that amount if the airport doesn’t give it $60,000 to cover half of the costs for firefighting services, Nygaard said.

Interim airport Manager Clarence W. “Bill” McKown Jr. has proposed having $50,000 in the budget for firefighting supplies and training airport employees to fight fires, but nothing for Lewiston’s firefighters.

Over time, having airport staff as part of the firefighting team will reduce the city’s costs, McKown said.

“We have to get through this year and we’re struggling,” board member Mandy Miles said. “Would it be fair to give us one more year?”

The airport has encountered a number of setbacks in the past year, including a decline in revenue because of the withdrawal of Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, which had flights to Boise and Seattle.

The airport, Nygaard said, is not the only entity facing challenges.

The city of Lewiston weighed a number of factors in deciding how much it can support the airport, such as the fact that 22,000 motorists drive on Thain Road each day, compared with the less than 500 passengers who fly in and out of Lewiston each day, Nygaard said.

“There’s just not enough money to go around and you have to prioritize,” he said.

Airport board members didn’t make any changes in the proposed budget Wednesday. But they also didn’t vote on the budget, which left the door open for continued discussions with the city.

The city has been providing firefighting services at the airport for decades without charging. This year, providing that service became more difficult.

The airport acquired a new, larger firetruck to replace one that was 22 years old. It didn’t fit in the Lewiston Orchards fire station next door to the airport, where airport firefighting operations had been based.

The new truck, which debuted in February, is housed in a building on the south side of the airport grounds.

At least one Lewiston firefighter has to be in that building, away from the Orchards fire station, just before and after the arrivals and departures of flights with 30 passengers or more.

Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.

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