Five Year Program Overview

ADOT Aeronautics develops the Five-Year Airport Capital Improvement Program (ACIP) to parallel the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Airport Capital Improvement Program and the ADOT Highway’s Program with the dual objective of maximizing the effective use of State dollars for airport development, while maximizing FAA funding for Arizona airports. Federal monies are derived mainly from taxes on airline tickets and are distributed by the Federal Aviation Administration to local airports through the National Airport Improvement Program. State funds come mainly from flight property tax, aircraft lieu taxes and aviation fuel taxes.

The ACIP development process allocates money from the State Aviation Fund and distributes these funds across three major categories of airport development assistance. The State Transportation Board approves this program annually. The three categories and their associated sub-categories are:

1. Airport Development Grants Program

• Projects utilizing Federal, State and Local funds

                Safety & Capacity Enhancement

                Maintenance

                Environmental, Planning and Land Acquisition

• Projects utilizing State and Local funds only

                Safety & Capacity Enhancement

                Environmental, Planning and Land Acquisition

2. Airport Preventive Maintenance Services (APMS)

• Projects maintaining and protecting aviation pavement surfaces

3. Airport Loan Program

• Economic development/revenue generating loans
• Grant match loans
• Grant advance loans

Arizona airport sponsors of 61 public airports submitted 1025 projects for consideration worth $1.6B over the 5-year program period. These projects represent all Federal and State funding desires on the part of the airport sponsors. This document, the State’s proposed Five-Year ACIP, totals $716.9 million. This is an approximately 3.9% increase from the previous year’s program. State funding, proposed at $96.1M, is 17.4% greater than last year’s total of $79.3M. This 5-year investment of State funds will support about $589.0M in Federal aid and require about $31.8M from airport sponsors.

The State’s Airport Assistance Programs for the Five-Year ACIP is designed to provide 50% of a sponsor’s share of a federally funded project. Current sponsor obligations on federal projects are 5% of a projects total cost, making the state share 2.5%. Each year, the ACIP sets aside between $2.5M (in FY 2006) to about $3.0 (in FY 2011) to match federal grants. As airport sponsors receive a federal grant, they apply to the state for the matching funds.

The Five-Year Program also provides for State funded grants. This documents shows those projects for State-local funding that have met the State Transportation Board’s qualifying priority rating. When the Board approves the Five-Year Program, the projects identified for fiscal year 2007 will be actually funded. All other fiscal year’s projects are subject to subsequence annual review and approval by the State Transportation Board.

This ACIP Document is formatted into four sections: Program Overview; Airport Development Program by fiscal year; Alphabetical Listing of projects by sponsor name; and a Summary of Project Totals by fiscal year. Although Subprogram categories are not listed, the individual information is retained in the State’s Aviation Database.  State fund contributions for Maintenance projects total $13.1M or 16.9% of the state-local program; Safety and Capacity Enhancement projects total $52.7M or 65.5% of the state-local program; and Environmental, Planning, and Land Acquisition projects total $7.4M or 9.2% of the state-local program. State-local funding distributions among the airport categories are: $11.7M designated for commercial service airports; $44.5M for reliever airports; $16.7M for public-general aviation airports and $1.0M for secondary airports. The maximum State grant does not exceed 10% of the net available funds for airport development.  The maximum State/Local grant (excluding Maintenance projects) for the fiscal year 2007 Program is $2,600,000.

Programming Guidelines

1. Projects proposed for inclusion in the program must be rated by the latest approved version of the Arizona Department of Transportation's (ADOT) Airport Priority Rating System and confirmed as being recommended for inclusion in the program.

2. Projected public ownership of a facility and availability for public use are both required for programming a project at that facility.

3. There are three categories in the Program:

• Airport Development Grants
• Airport Preventative Maintenance Services (APMS)
• Airport Loans

4. There are three types of projects in the Grants category:

• Projects that are related to Maintenance.
• Projects that are related to Safety and/or Capacity Enhancement.
• Projects that are related to Environmental Studies, Planning or Land Acquisition.

5. Funds are to be programmed with approximately 80% to commercial service/reliever airports, 18% to public, general aviation airports and 2% to secondary airports.

6. During each year of the program, funds to match FAA grants are set aside based on the amount of funds the FAA programs for airports in the state.  These funds are to be programmed to provide up to 50% of the Local share of all eligible items contained in FAA airport project grants.

7. The maximum State/Local grant amount for any airport project will not exceed 10% of the net available for construction.  The maximum State/Local grant (excluding Maintenance Projects) amount for FY 2007 is $2,600,000.

8. The program is developed in a manner to utilize the maximum prudent and practical amount of Federal funds.

9. The State may fund up to 90% of a primary airport project and 95% of a secondary airport project with no Federal participation.

10. Consideration is to be given for including research and development projects that have a potential for significant economic and/or technical benefit to Arizona airports and/or airport users.

11. The Grants and APMS categories are a facilities/capital improvements program that parallels the Federal Airport Improvement Program in terms of eligible grant items with the exception that the State does not fund capital equipment, routine operating maintenance items or revenue producing projects. The Airport Loan category is design to accommodate revenue-producing projects specific to an airport’s economic welfare.

12. The program was developed using approved Transportation Board Policies.  Where there is a diversion from the approved policy, a new policy issue will be presented to the Board for their consideration and approval.

13. Sponsors are encouraged not to modify the scope of work after a grant has been issued.  Any funds remaining after the initial work in the grant has been completed are to be returned to the State Aviation Fund.  Grant offers not executed for State/Local projects by December 1 of each year, will be withdrawn and the funds will be made available for other high priority projects.

14. Grant duration for acquiring airport land is subject to individual review, but under no circumstances may exceed 8 years.