Legislative panel warns spaceport boss
Unrealistic financial reporting shouldn’t continue, he’s cautioned
Members of a legislative oversight committee on Friday warned the new head of Spaceport America against being unrealistic in reporting the facility’s finances.
Just 14 days on the job, New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Dan Hicks presented his goals for the spaceport and summed up its balance sheet in broad terms to the New Mexico Finance Authority Oversight Committee.
Several committee members, apparently frustrated with the leadership of past-CEO Christine Anderson, admonished Hicks not to go down the same road.
Hicks’ presentation to the committee claimed the Spaceport would be “self-sustaining” by 2019. It is currently funding 71 percent of its $5.6 million operating budget with revenue other than general fund appropriations, Hicks said.
Co-chairman Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Doña Ana, reminded Hicks that the spaceport has in part been surviving off the excess revenue from the gross receipts taxes that fund the construction bonds, paid for by residents of Sierra and Doña Ana counties.
The excess revenue totaled $564,000 in fiscal 2015 and amounts to $500,000 in fiscal 2016, Hicks said.
“These taxes are voted by the citizens to make the spaceport a success,” he said. “The extra revenue can pay down the bonds earlier or (be used) to make the spaceport successful. It’s critical for us to keep that to make the spaceport successful.”
Cervantes countered Hicks’ assertion, saying, “The tax was to build the spaceport — it was not to sustain it. I don’t think anybody believed that was the case.”
The issue of the excess GRT revenue has come up in the Legislature before. During the 2016 regular session, Sen. Lee Cotter, R-Las Cruces, sponsored a bill that would prohibit the spaceport from using excess bond rev--
enue for operating expenses.
Anderson said at the time that the bill would be the end of Spaceport America.
Spaceport America has struggled to drum up enough business to cover its operating costs as the hypercompetitive commercial space industry hasn’t developed as fast as some expected. Many launch companies — including the spaceport’s anchor tenant, Virgin Galactic — are still testing key technologies.
Virgin Galactic aims to fly tourists to the edge of space and back from Spaceport America but has returned to its test-flight phase after a fatal accident during a rocket-powered test of its spaceship in 2014.
“I know and understand there are projects down there that are really confidential,” said Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert R-Sandoval, committee co-chair. “But it would be great for the committee with oversight to have some insight into what is really going on that is going to make the spaceport successful.”
Many times there are nondisclosure agreements to get prospective companies to talk with the spaceport, Hicks said, “but there is nothing to prevent us from saying ‘these are the kind of projects going on.’”