May 25, 2020
In our last posting, we explained how our airports are dealing with COVID-19. There has since been another twist to how our airports are dealing with the fall-out of COVID-19: Ohio's Direct Grant program has been slashed. Twenty projects were selected at General Aviation (GA) airports by the Ohio Department of Transportation for FY2020. Eighteen of those 20 grants have been negatively impacted by the budget cuts ordered by the Office of Budget Management. Airport projects notoriously are completed late in the state's fiscal year due to design, bid, and construction processes. Our money was still sitting on the table, ripe to be taken back from the airports. And the state needed to come up with cuts.
The truth of the matter is that we all understand: state revenues are down drastically due to the stay-at-home orders. The latest numbers say more people have filed for some level of unemployment assistance in Ohio than ever before. How are Ohio's schools going to teach kids next year? These are BIG issues.