Oct. 14—Butler County received a $2 million grant from the federal government for airport runway rehabilitation that allows officials to ramp up the 10-year capital improvement plan and hopefully spur use at the Butler County Regional Airport.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown announced a new cash influx of $4.1 million for airports in the region last week, and Butler County received a $2 million grant to rehabilitate the runway at the airport.
" Ohio airports are vital infrastructure supporting travel and commerce in our state," said Brown. "These investments will provide southwest Ohio airports with the resources they need to ensure the safety of their passengers and support the local economy for years to come."
Butler County Development Director David Fehr, who is in charge of the Hogan Field, said the runway project has been on their 10-year capital improvement plan that totaled $3.7 million. Unlike other federal grants they receive through the Federal Aviation Administration, the county doesn't have to provide matching funds for this project.
Normally the feds will pay 90%, the state and county 5% each.
"We don't have to pay our local match so 5% of $2 million that's starts to be some real money," Fehr said adding the FAA was looking for shovel-ready projects to fund and they have already done the groundwork, so the project should be completed next year.
Fehr said the FAA funding they receive is to help maintain what they already have at the airport not for expansion. Recently he made a pitch to the commissioners for $1.3 million worth of the county's nearly $75 million allocation of American Rescue Plan funds to build a new taxiway and an additional 10 hangars for corporate planes at the county-owned airport.
For years the county commissioners have said they want the airport to be an asset that turns a profit. They fired their former airport manager Ron Davis in 2017 because general fund monies were bailing out the airport out in sums of of $40,000 to $50,000 annually, up to as much as $100,000. The budget has been in the black since then because they are saving his $93,710 annual salary that with benefits totaled $110,310.
Fehr said without the $1.3 million investment, that could open up 19 vacant acres along Bobmeyer Road, the airport is basically grounded in terms of new economic development. He estimated the hangar project would bring 250 new jobs and about $500,000 in new property taxes, fuel fees and income taxes to the city of Fairfield.
"Most of the folks I've had speak with me the past few years are interested in building some corporate hangars and right now I just don't have a spot for them until we get that area on the other side of main road developed," Fehr said.
"If somebody comes to right now and wants to build a corporate hangar, a hangar that's big enough to hold a jet there is no physical location that I can put them in any longer, we're full."
The future of the new project is uncertain at this point. During the work sessions the commissioners held to hear ARPA proposals, Commissioner Cindy Carpenter voiced strong opposition to using federal rescue funds for the project.
"I do not think this in any way qualifies as lifting up those communities, communities of color, communities who have been struggling, I think it's really unfair to say it's in a qualified census tract so we need the money...," Carpenter said adding the project should be funded by the county general fund not ARPA funds. "I'm sad to see what appears to be kind of a money grab."
The last expansion idea floated a few years ago was a potential deal with Butler Tech to bring a drone school to the airport, but it fell through because of concerns over potential collisions with passenger aircraft. Commissioner T.C. Rogers, who is the commissioners' liaison to the airport, said he couldn't guarantee airport safety with the drone idea but of the hangar project "I want the jets."
"I would like our airport to be more commercially projective," Rogers said. "Because I think it better serves our corporations and industries within a few mile radius. There's plenty sources of money."
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