The Phoenix City Council will consider this week a proposal from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to cut $15.8 million in expenses and eliminate 47 jobs in fiscal 2010 due to a decline in flights and passengers using the facility.
If approved, the cuts will keep the self-supporting city-owned airport at its current budget of about $200 million a year. The airport board had planned to ask for a $15 million increase for fiscal 2010, which begins July 1.
The cuts come after Sky Harbor cut its fiscal 2008 budget by $8 million. Officials said the airport will delay between $200 million and $300 million of construction projects over the next five years.
The city planned to finance the current capital improvement program, which was to be completed in 2020, with a senior-lien revenue bond issue in 2010 of $155 million, $425 million of bonds in 2010 supported by the passenger facility charge collected by the airport, and another $220 million of PSF bonds in 2012.
Phoenix’s airport bonds are rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-minus by Standard & Poor’s.
