Committee Forming to Create Regional Airport Authority

ST. CLOUD -- The idea of creating a regional airport authority to run the St. Cloud Regional Airport has been talked about for years, now three local governments appear to be moving forward with that plan.

The Sherburne County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution earlier this month to be part of an Ad Hoc Committee to hammer out the details. St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis says the city council is expected to pass the resolution at their meeting on Monday.

We've been discussing this for a long time.  It creates a timeline for n Ad Hoc committee to work out the details of what a regional authority structure would look like.  So that's the goal to have that done during the summer.

The Stearns County Board of Commissioners is expected to vote on it at their meeting on June 25th. The Benton County Board of Commissioners declined to participate, but Kleis says the door is open for them to join later.

The Ad Hoc Committee would be responsible for working out all of the details of what a Regional Airport Authority would look like by September 1st, and then each entity would have to approve that agreement.

Right now the St. Cloud Regional Airport is 100 percent owned and run by the city of St. Cloud.

The city of St. Cloud would continue to provide property tax support to the airport for up to 10 years, and $200,000 a year in half-cent sales tax money through 2038. Kleis says the goal of creating a Regional Airport Authority is to ultimately get the airport to become self-sufficient.

A recent study concluded the St. Cloud Regional Airport is an important regional airport producing an annual economic impact of $44.2 million, supporting 229 jobs.