Friday, November 15, 2002
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Friday, November 15, 2002 |
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Airport authority offers hotel-motel tax payment to PTC council for shortfall By JOHN
MUNFORD The Peachtree City Airport Authority is offering to pay the city $16,972 to cover its share of the shortfall in hotel-motel tax revenues for the recently concluded fiscal year. At its meeting Wednesday night, the authority unanimously approved an agreement to transfer the funds to the city. The agreement, which has not yet been considered by the city council, calls for the city to repay the funds to the authority by Sept. 30, 2003 in the hopes that the hotel-motel tax receipts increase this year. "This will just go ahead and turn it over to the city," said airport authority chairwoman Cathy Nelmes. The authority uses its portion of the hotel-motel tax for its capital improvement program. In February, the authority began putting money aside on a monthly basis just in case the annual hotel-motel tax collections were short from the city's original projections. The authority set aside a total of $28,000 by the end of the fiscal year, but the city calculated its share of the shortfall was under $17,000. Of the remaining $11,028, the authority also voted to set aside $5,000 for a marketing plan to help promote Falcon Field. The authority is working on developing the plan to attract airport-related businesses to Falcon Field. In other business, the authority heard a request to reduce its airport access fee for businesses located off airport property. Currently, the authority charges businesses 20 cents per square foot of its combined hangar and apron space for aircraft storage. Office space, taxi ways and taxi lanes are not included in calculating the square footage for the fee. Mike Rossetti of Jet Limo, which is adjacent to Falcon Field, argued that the fee is too high, considering that his business would pay more in airport access fees than he would in property taxes. Rossetti said the airport could lower the fee to a nominal level to attract more airport-related businesses. He also argued that the off-airport access fee benefits the businesses which are located on airport grounds. "It's not a level playing field," Rossetti said. Nelmes disagreed that the current fee is too high, but she said the authority could consider deferring a portion of the fees over the business's first year to help it get off the ground successfully. Rossetti said he would have to calculate whether such a plan would help his situation. The fee structure was changed two years ago from one that relied on the airport being paid 3 percent of the net income taken in by the business. But that was shelved after the authority heard complaints that it required the businesses to share their financial data with the airport. The current system is much easier to administrate, Nelmes added, but she also offered. The Federal Aviation Administration requires the airport to charge some type of off-airport access fee, she added. The authority is expected to discuss the matter in depth at its next meeting. Nelmes said she was willing to study what other airports are charging for such fees, but most airports which do so aren't similar to Falcon Field, she said. The authority also discussed how it wants to proceed in seeking bids to have roof and wall leaks at the terminal building repaired. Airport manager Jim Savage said he called several companies to inspect the problems and propose solutions that would be implemented by a separate contractor. But Nelmes said she wanted to make sure that the authority had a guarantee the repairs would work, and using separate companies could cause a problem with that since one could blame the other if the leaks still exist after the work is complete. The company that would inspect the building would also be in charge of preparing the request for proposals and overseeing the work of the second contractor to make sure the recommended repairs are made, Savage said. Nelmes inquired whether the inspecting contractor would have a performance bond to guarantee the work. Savage said he would get more information on the matter for the authority's next meeting. The authority also approved a $4,700 bid to repaint a portion of the building that houses Peachtree Flight School and Enterprise car rental. The project includes repainting the exterior of the building's office area after blasting away old paint and priming those areas, Savage said.
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