Airport Authority holds meeting, gets new board member

The Seymour Municipal Airport Authority recently met to discuss project updates.

The board also welcomed new member Brandon Sunbury, who replaces longtime member Lloyd Hudson following his retirement at the end of 2022. Sunbury is a manager in the commercial roofing division of Royalty Roofing.

Katie England, the airport’s representative with Butler, Fairman & Seufert Inc. engineering firm in Indianapolis, discussed several projects in the works.

Each year, the Federal Aviation Administration requires the airport to submit a letter of intent on how it wants to use NPE funds. The Non-Priority Entitlement Block Grant Program provides up to $150,000 annually from the Airport Improvement Program to the majority of other-than-primary airports in the country for airport improvement projects.

England said because the FAA and Indiana Department of Transportation have pushed construction of Freeman Municipal Airport’s runway 14-32 rehabilitation out to 2024, the choice for the airport this year is to roll its funds.

“Basically, the funds will stay there until next year, and when you go to construction, you’ll have $300,000 available,” England said.

She said each airport is based on its classification, which the FAA determines based on the number of aircraft the airport has based there and the number of aircraft in operation. Classification determines the NPE funds.

“Primary airports are the ones like in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville, and the general aviation airports are non-primary, so they get non-primary entitlements each year of $150,000,” she said. “You can use the funds toward projects you put in the capital improvement plan, which is your five-year plan of what you want to spend on runways, lighting, safety projects, etc.”

England said the airport develops the plan, which gets submitted to INDOT and FAA and they weigh in on it.

“What they did in this case, even though your airport has had a design grant for about six months now, they decided you don’t have all the money you’re going to need for the runway,” she said. “Since it’s over $150,000, they need you to push it off a year.”

Board President Brian Thompson asked England how many years they would be allowed to roll over the NPE funds.

“You can roll it for four years and have $600,000 saved up at Year 4 to put toward a project,” she said. “But that means during those four years, you’re not doing anything.”

How things get done at the airport is a combination of the NPE funds and discretionary funds, which the FAA and INDOT control, and there’s a very limited amount of discretionary dollars that come into the state each year, about $70 million, England said.

“I’d say about one-third of that goes to the airports like in Indianapolis, Evansville and Fort Wayne,” she said. “The rest of the smaller portion that’s left is spread out between the other airports in Indiana.”

England said basically, the FAA has to slow down airport plans in order to get them funded.