The Upper Cumberland Regional Airport’s new fiscal year budget includes a slight increase in expenditures.
UCRA Airport Director Dean Selby said the airport needs to add staff, as its growth continues. Insurance costs are also rising. Selby said the airport is looking to add two additional employees over the next few years.
“The cost of that has shifted to individual companies, corporations, and people using the airport but that’s just natural growth as the area is growing as we are growing and as we are talking about commercial service and moving forward on some of that we are gonna have to add some more people,” Selby said.
Selby said the airport has requested $70,000 from Cookeville, Putnam County, Sparta, and White County to help with matching funds for grants. Selby said the budget also has appropriated funds to start the process of working with T-DOT to see which right-of-way parcels around the airport need to be purchased.
“We are working on appraisals on some of those parcels and trying to determine if we actually need them or if we don’t need them or what the cost of them are going to be,” Selby said. “Most of them have been determined that we do need to buy these pieces of property to own that right-of-way but as we go forward we will evaluate them one at a time.”
Selby said the plan is to slowly purchase parcels over the next several years. Selby said the reason for purchasing parcels around the airport is part of a master plan for the future growth of the airport. Selby said though he would like for his budget to have more funds available for other projects he believes the budget is in good shape and ready to take on the next fiscal year.
Selby said the budget is projecting the airport to generate an estimated $1.8 million in revenue during the next fiscal year. Selby said generating the revenue reduces the amount of financial backing it needs from local governments.
“The vast majority of that is generated on-site through the airport through fuel sales, lease rates, hangar rates, concession air agreements, and other things that the airport has with different entities,” Selby said. “That’s a huge burden that comes off of taxpayers when we can generate almost all of our income.”
