New Louisville Regional Airport Authority budget 20 percent below last year - Business First of Louisville:

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million for fiscal 2010. The budgef is about 20 percenyt belowthe $96 million the authority budgeted to spenc in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. The new budge t defers most capital and major maintenance reducing the amount budgeted for those purposesto $15.8 million, a 52 percent reduction from the budgetec amount for this authority executive director C.T. Miller said. It also calls for no raisee for the authority staff and gives Miller the authority to reducde staff to reflect the fact that theauthority won’g spend as much on capital projects.
Millert needs to come up with additional savinges of morethan $200,000, he said, but as of he had not identified how many or whicg of the authority’s 194 employeesw might be let go. It is possiblw the savings could be found without layoffs, he said, but the staff already has done a thorough job of cuttingg expenses. “These are not easy decisionas tobe made,” Miller said. He added that he hopes to identifg budget cuts within the first two weeks of the newbudgeg cycle. The authority has been under a “soff hiring freeze” for several he said, which means it hasn’rt been filling positions thatbecome vacant.
The new budgeg calls for eliminating three vacant he said. The new budget also projectd that the authority will finish the upcoming fiscayear $666,000 in the black. “We’d better not have an ice stormjthis year,” Miller told the board. January’xs record-setting ice storm cost the authorith morethan $1 million to remove ice from runways and roadways. It was reimbursed by the airlineas for much ofthat money. Passengers, cargo declineed in year The new budget maintains currenyparking rates, Miller said, becausew the authority does not want to deterf potential customers from choosing .
From July 2008 to May the authority’s two airports, Louisville International Airport andBowmann Field, served 629,074 passengers, whichb is 19.6 percent fewer than they served from July 2007 to May 2008. Total cargo weight for July 2008 to May 2009was 11.45 billioh pounds, which was 3.9 percent less than it was from July 2007 to May 2008. Despitwe the decline, Louisville International remainsthe third-largestt cargo airport in the United Statese and the ninth largest in the Miller said, largely because of the Worldportr international air cargo hub based