Senate committee advances bill to streamline procurement at major airports, study air-traffic controller training site

The Kentucky Senate Committee on Transportation on Wednesday advanced Senate Bill 87 with a committee substitute that would tie procurement thresholds for the state’s three largest commercial airports to the Federal Aviation Administration’s simplified acquisition threshold and direct state education and transportation officials to study options for air‑traffic‑controller credentialing, committee members said.

The move, taken at a committee meeting in Frankfort, is designed to let airport procurement thresholds adjust with the FAA’s simplified acquisition threshold, which is indexed to inflation, so the airports will not need repeated legislative changes as contract sizes rise, Seth Cutter, representing CVG (Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport), told the committee. "The bill streamlines the procurement for Kentucky's largest airports…