Miracle Strip Aviation, one of two fixed-base operators at Destin Airport, has agreed to a plan that would settle its $485,000 debt with the county by 2019.
The Okaloosa County Commission is scheduled to vote on the plan at its Tuesday meeting.
“It’s a very good deal,” interim airports director Dino Villani said. “(The county) is recovering all the funds that should have been paid.”
The other benefit, he said, is “a healthy airport.”
Under the plan, Miracle Strip Aviation, which was recently purchased by Mississippi-based Regal Capital, would pay the county $150,000 upfront, make $100,000 in major renovations to the county-owned terminal at Destin Airport and repay the remaining $235,382 at 4 percent interest over six years.
Villani said the renovations would include improvements to the lobby and the bathrooms.
“It’s improving a county building,” he said. “We get our money back, we get interest ... and we hopefully get a good fixed-base operator to help the airport thrive.”
Miracle Strip Aviation amassed the $485,382 debt because of an error in the county’s billing system. From 2006 to 2011, the company received invoices from the county as a courtesy. The invoices were incorrect, billing for an amount lower than the actual lease payment.
“They continued to pay the old rate,” County Administrator Jim Curry said. “They never adjusted to the new rate.”
The discrepancy between what Miracle Strip Aviation should have been paying and what they continued to remit also was overlooked by the county until discovered by an internal audit in February 2011.
Other issues to be considered at the commissioners’ Tuesday meeting include:
- The approval of a short list of candidates for county administrator. The board will narrow a pool of nine finalists to five. The nine finalists are Rick Chaffin, deputy city manager of McKinney, Texas; Patricia Crook, city manager of Adairsville, Ga.; Ted Lakey, county manager of Jackson County, Fla.; W. Scott Larese, senior vice president of Navigator Development Group in Enterprise, Ala.; Stephen Layson, chief administrative officer of Bibb County, Ga.; Charles R. Oliver, a consultant for Pensacola; Ernie Padgett, county administrator of Manatee County, Fla.; Richard Starks, county administrator of Florence County, S.C.; Christopher K. Wilson, city administrator for Southaven, Miss.
- A proposal by Okaloosa County Tax Collector Ben Anderson requesting permission to take over the collection of bed taxes from the Clerk of Court’s Office.
Story: http://www.nwfdailynews.com
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