At its May 20 meeting, District of Muskoka Council officially approved the creation of the Muskoka Airport Inc., a municipal service corporation, and its advisory board.
Its inaugural board will consist of the following persons:
- Zaina Alhillou, appointed until 2026;
- Jeff Lehman, appointed until 2026;
- Don MacKay, appointed until 2026
- Selma Lussenburg, appointed until 2027;
- Eileen Waechter, appointed until 2027
- Jennifer Brooy, appointed until 2028 and
- Mark Verdun, appointed until 2028
All buildings and most of the equipment will be transferred to Muskoka Airport Inc. (MAI). The District will retain the airport lands and lease them to MAI on a long-term basis.
With the exception of the CEO, the airport employees will remain as District employees, but MAI will pay for their salaries and benefits. The airport CEO will be an employee of and paid for by MAI.
The target date for the official transfer of the airport will be July 1st, which would mean the District Municipality of Muskoka would remain responsible for the operations of the airport until June 30 and MIA would take over on July 1, 2025.
District Commissioner of Finance and Corporate Services Suzanne Olimer explained that the District will still be responsible for funding approximately $1.3M of the net levy to support airport operations. She said the balance of unfinished capital projects would be closed off on the District side and become newly created projects on the MAI ledger. Any reserves will be transferred to MAI.
Mike Murray, the consultant working on helping the Muskoka Airport transition to a municipal service corporation, gave councillors a recap on why they decided to go down that path.
“There are a number of potential benefits of creating a municipal service corporation for the airport. I worked in municipal government for almost 30 years, and in the region of Waterloo, where I was the CAO for a while, we had a municipal airport and what I learned is municipal airports are unlike just about any other municipal function. They operate in a competitive business environment and so they’re sometimes constrained by working as a competitive business within a municipal environment and within the constraints of the Municipal Act,” said Murray.
He noted that some of the benefits of creating a municipal service corporation for an airport include:
- Streamlined and faster decision making
- Potentially streamline communication and engagement with all stakeholders
- Potentially increased airport revenue
- Increased economic impact
- Ability to access third-party financing
For more on this you can find the staff report HERE.
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Councillors hope new governance model for Muskoka Airport will help it break even
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