Sherburne County is taking the next step to insure the future success of the St. Cloud Regional Airport.

 

Tuesday, the board signed a joint resolution to start an ad hoc committee with the goal of developing an airport authority. 

 

The City of St. Cloud has owned and operated the airport for the past 50 years and has financed the operations and capital needs from a variety of sources, including federal and state grants, regional local option sales tax and property taxes.

 

Administrator Steve Taylor said in February 2019, the Greater St. Cloud Development Corp. (GSDC) commissioned a comprehensive study to develop strategic initiatives to help optimize the use, growth and development of the airport. 

 

“One of the key components was to analyze and increase the airport’s economic impact on the region, including St. Cloud, Stearns, Sherburne and Benton counties,” he said.

 

At a county workshop April 23, the board received information on the study by Steve Baldwin and GSDC. Recommendations from that study included developing a business mindset, reducing the deficit, enhancing marketing and forming an airport authority.

 

Since that meeting, Taylor said he has been working with the administrators of St. Cloud and Stearns County to put together a resolution for the creation of an airport authority.

 

Tuesday’s resolution is the first step - creating an airport advisory committee. 

 

“The purpose of the ad hoc committee is to create the composition of who is going to be on the airport authority and develop some broad priorities,” said Taylor.

 

He said the study showed the airport currently has an overall economic impact of $44.2 million, with 289 jobs generating wages of $17.1 million and local taxes of $2.3 million. 

 

But the airpost is losing about $800,000 a year.

 

“Once the authority is established, the City of St. Cloud would continue to support the airport financially at its current level or less for a maximum of 10 years,” said Taylor.

 

The committee will be comprised of the Sherburne Co. Administrator, the Stearns Co. Administrator, the St. Cloud City Administrator, one elected official appointed by each entity and three members appointed by mutual agreement of the parties. The board appointed Commissioner Felix Schmisesing to serve on the committee, with Commissioner Lisa Fobbe as alternate.

 

“I it think it’s important that we continue to move forward with this. We’ve kind of identified it as an underperforming asset in our community,” said Commissioner Tim Dolan. “We got the money set aside to do this study to see if it was worth salvaging. The study says it’s worth going in this direction. The study shows the economic impact and it shows the  potential of future economic impact if it’s run the right way by the airport authority.”

 

The same resolution will be presented to the St. Cloud City Council June 17 and the Stearns County Board June 25.