Carbondale Reporter

An Illinois Policy analyst reports that under the stress of COVID-19 shutdowns, Mid America St. Louis Airport – which for years has operated in the red while being bailed out by taxpayers – now threatens to become a bottomless money pit.

“St. Clair County taxpayers had to add another $7 million to keep MidAmerica St. Louis Airport open in 2019, according to auditors,” Brad Weisenstein said on the Illinois Policy website. “That brings the total subsidy to $111.3 million since 2002, when auditors first reported the amount needed to balance the airport’s books.

The bigger question may be how much cash will be needed during 2020, as COVID-19 decimates the airline industry and chokes passenger traffic,” he added. “Current passenger traffic data for MidAmerica was unavailable, but the only passenger carrier there offered 10 destinations a year ago and currently lists only seven.”

Weisenstein’s article displayed a chart that showed how much Illinois taxpayers have had to pay up to keep the airport afloat from 2002 to 2019. The airport has received money from the county’s General Fund, the report noted.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March, rising flight operations brought an added $338,000 each year and expenses were cut by $1.2 million annually, according to an auditor’s report. The report predicted the county will not be able to increase its budget and the county’s General Fund will continue to bail out the airport.

Exacerbating the problems are cuts in state revenues and unfunded state mandates with the impact of COVID-19 looming like a black cloud over the airport’s fiscal picture.

Airlines nationwide saw a plummet in traffic for the first months of the pandemic by 96%. As of August, passenger traffic nationally was only 28% of what it was the previous year, the report said.

“St. Clair County homeowners should be concerned that scarce resources are flowing to a project unable to turn a profit,” Weisenstein said. “They should also ask how bailing out the Airport is affecting their property taxes and home values, especially the value of a rural home where they rarely see a sheriff’s deputy on patrol because that money is keeping an airport staffed.”

Illinois Policy is a Chicago-based think tank that studies state budget issues.