Panel examines use of airport fund

ST. PAUL (AP) — Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL lawmakers used $15 million from a state airport fund to help balance the budget last session, and now, a Senate subcommittee is examining the effects of that decision.
State aviation executives and other business officials told the panel Tuesday that the transfer would probably delay building projects at many of the 136 publicly owned airports in Minnesota.
At Falls International Airport, the cuts will mean canceling the purchase of a pickup truck with plow, a mower and a power washer.
Brian Ryks, Duluth airport’s authority executive director, said officials there were counting on $1.4 million from the airport fund to help build a new passenger terminal.
Subcommittee members said the effects of the $15 million transfer to the state’s general fund are compounded because another $15 million was taken from the airport fund in 2003. That wasn’t paid back until this year, and then it was almost immediately taken out again with no provision to repay it.
‘‘Did people just forget?’’ asked Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, chairwoman of the Transportation Subcommittee on Airways, Waterways and Railways. ‘‘I find it distressing, quite frankly.’’
Norman Foster, the Department of Finance’s executive budget director, said the transfers were relatively rare. Foster said the problem wasn’t detected because ‘‘there was sufficient cash in the fund to keep the (airport) activities going.’’
Aviation officials said the fund is misunderstood, and they feared it would be regularly raided to help ease the state’s budget woes.
The airport fund dates back to 1945 and receives most of its revenue from aviation gasoline and special fuel taxes, an airline flight property tax and an aircraft registration tax.
Jon Krall, aviation director for Supervalu, said the company paid a $200,000 first-year aircraft registration fee for the planes it has at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. In contrast, he said, the company paid a $300 registration fee in Idaho.
‘‘I can’t even confidently look our management team in the eye and say, ’Don’t worry, those funds go to support the airport,’’’ he said.
Sen. Michael Jungbauer, R-East Bethel, said the fund transfer reflects poorly on Pawlenty and adds to a general distrust of elected officials, when people are already suspicious about where their taxes go.
‘‘(This) makes us look like liars,’’ he said.