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I [A c vERc Office of the - INDIAN RIVER COUNTY �* * ADMINISTRATOR \LORt4 � Jason E. Brown, County Administrator Michael C. Zito, Assistant County Administrator MEMORANDUM TO: Members of the Board of County Commissioners FROM: Kathleen Keenan Legislative Affairs and Communications Manager DATE: March 10, 2021 SUBJECT: Resolution in Support of the Adoption of House Bill 1143 and Senate Bill 1466 as Filed in the 2021 Florida Legislative Session Background Florida's public -use airports rely heavily on funding provided by both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) for their large capital improvement projects. These projects include airfield infrastructure and facilities (runway, taxiway and parking apron pavement rehabilitation), airfield equipment, and landside road and building projects. However, regardless of the funding source, the airport sponsor is always responsible for providing matching funding from the airport or sponsor budget. Under current state law, FDOT funds airport master planning and eligible aviation development projects at General Aviation Airports at 80 percent of project cost. General Aviation Airports are airports with no scheduled commercial airline service. The majority of these projects are maintenance of existing airport infrastructure to assure their continued safe operating condition. When a.General Aviation Airport begins to receive scheduled commercial airline service, and subsequently exceeds 10,000 annual commercial passenger enplanements, the airport is classified as a primary Commercial Service Airport by the FAA and FDOT. When an airport receives this classification, FDOT funding eligibility is reduced from 80 percent to 50 percent. This puts smaller Commercial Service Airports, like the Vero Beach Regional Airport, at a financial disadvantage. With the loss of state funding, the airport is faced with delaying or cancelling capital improvement projects. 134