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Dane County committee approves amendment to 2025 airport operating budget after questions about consulting carryforwards
Summary
The Personnel & Finance Committee approved a resolution to amend the 2025 airport operating budget to recognize carryforward funds, including a large consulting line, after airport staff said the sums were inadvertently left out of the adopted budget and are already in the airport's unrestricted account.
The Dane County Personnel & Finance Committee on June 9 approved a resolution amending the county's 2025 operating budget to add previously budgeted airport expenditure lines, including a multi-million-dollar consulting category.
Committee members raised questions about the size of the consulting line after a public commenter said consulting totaled about $2.19 million and asked whether the county was effectively budgeting to move the airport. Gene Myers, representing Dane County Regional Airport, told the committee the funds were inadvertently omitted from the adopted 2025 budget and are carryforwards from prior years sitting in the airport's unrestricted account. He said the consulting line covers multiple kinds of consulting across firms and topics, including environmental and noise work, and that large contracts would still come to the County Board for approval before funds are spent.
The amendment, which the committee approved by voice vote, restores those line items so the airport can spend money that it has already collected. County staff and committee members said similar carryforward items were found for other departments during a fiscal review and that the amendment is an administrative correction rather than the approval of a single $2 million contract.
Committee Chair Veldren called for the vote after discussion; the motion carried on a voice vote.
Committee discussion and public comment focused on transparency and whether the airport should identify specific vendors or contracts before the Board sees related spending. Airport staff said the resolution simply creates appropriation authority for previously collected funds and does not obligate the county to a single consulting contract.
The vote followed routine committee business and passed without a roll-call tally provided in the meeting transcript.
The airport appropriation amendment will allow the airport to use collected revenues for planned consulting and operating expenses that staff said were budgeted in prior years but omitted from the adopted 2025 budget.
