Airport budgets for manager job

TEXARKANA — For the first time in about five years, the Texarkana Regional Airport will have an operations manager.

The airport’s Authority Board agreed Thursday to approve adjusting this year’s budget to include re-implementing this position.

The board also approved funds to buy a four-wheeldrive truck as well as designating money for legal services.

All three appropriations collectively should amount to about $100,000.

Airport Executive Director of Aviation Paul Mehrlich agreed to makes adjustments in the operations-manager job description after Board Member Robin Hickerson asked for some clarifications about the job description’s wording.

Mehrlich said the job will basically entail monitoring the airport’s overall daily operations and seeing that those operations meet safety compliance as stipulated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Mehrlich also said that $642,000 in the second round of federal CARES Act funds will be used to begin the first-phase construction on the airport’s new $34 million passenger terminal. This phase will take place shortly after the building’s June 12 groundbreaking. It will involve putting down the structure’s foundation, as well as setting in place its water, electrical and heating utilities.

In other business, board members approved submitting a grant application to the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics, for slightly more then $158,000.