Anyone who’s been to the grocery store or bought concert tickets in the last couple of years has noticed that the prices of things are going up – and that’s also something that officials running Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) are finding out as they attempt to run that giant operation.
PTIA has been doing great things for the community in recent years – bringing in high-profile companies to the new aviation megasite, slowly but steadily adding passengers and routes, and increasing the national attention on Greensboro and its very convenient airport.
That’s all well and good, however, all that activity at the airport, and other factors, are raising the cost of running the place – and those increases are showing up in the newly adopted 2023-2024 fiscal year budget for PTIA.
The new budget reflects an increase of 7.2 percent in expenses over the 2022-2023 fiscal budget.
Here are some of the culprits:
- Salaries, wages and benefits. In the new fiscal year, those are increasing by $759,000. Salary and wage increases make up $548,000 of that number – mainly due to budgeting for new positions and annual raises.
New contract labor accounts for $82,000. Most of that has to do with an increase in custodial services that PTIA is contracting out rather than getting in-house.
There are also increases in expenses related to contributions to the retirement funds for the airport’s Police Department. (Yes, the airport, which in many ways is really like a small town, has its own police force.)
The new budget includes a $90,000 increase in benefits for the police – mainly the result of an increase in contributions to the retirement plan.
According to information from the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority, the board that runs and oversees the airport, “controllable expenses” are increasing $922,000. This comes mainly in the areas of office supplies, maintenance contracts, other supplies and repair expenses.
Professional Services are slotted to cost $204,000 more in the new fiscal year, largely due to an increase in miscellaneous professional fees. Also, the cost of Insurance and utilities are going up at the airport.
So how will they pass that on? Gate fees? Higher rents for the merchants? Do they pay the new property tax increases?
Mebbe the airlines could compensate for higher gate fees by taking an inch in width off the seating?
They need to be more proactive in aggressively working to reduce costs, rather than rolling over and just accepting them.
As a small business owner I can almost always avoid a cost hike by doing something differently.
It’s a lesson they should learn.
not mentioned is the cost of clean-up of pfas/pfos contamination of an entire region’s drinking water supply that was caused there. did that fire fighting foam have proper disposal instructions ? were they followed ? class – action lawsuit against inept guv’mnt ? go get’em pin- head dancers !