CoMoBUZ Insider Briefing, April 24, 2026

Mike's quick, weekly no-nonsense look at civic affairs in Columbia and Boone County, Missouri. This week, Mike discusses the city of Columbia’s use of revenue guarantees to airlines at Columbia Regional Airport, the city’s planned new one-cent sales tax for public safety, façade panels falling off a downtown student high rise, the electric utility trying to recover costs related to power purchases, and the Boone Health breakup with its cardiologists. 

Transcript

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The City of Columbia is not just dabbling in airline subsidies anymore. It's building a public policy around them. And that means public money, or at least publicly controlled money, is increasingly being used to reduce the business risk of private airlines serving Columbia Regional Airport. From ComoBuz.com, this is the Como Buzz Insider Briefing, a weekly look at the decisions, documents, and debates shaping Columbia and Boone County. I'm Mike Murphy. Later in the episode, Columbia moves toward asking voters for a major new public safety sales tax, and a lawsuit over falling facade panels at the rise on ninth pulls back the curtain on a safety problem in one of downtown's busiest blocks. And Boone Health is getting ready to launch a cardiology clinic. But we begin this week with the airport. Columbia's city government has now made something plain. It is willing to use public-backed financial incentives to recruit and expand commercial air service. That was already clear when the City Council approved a $1.5 million revenue guarantee for American Airlines service to Charlotte. Now it's even clearer because the airport officials have acknowledged they're also working on a separate agreement with Allegiant Air tied to Plan Air Service to Orlando and Destin. The expected allegiance package will be $1 million. Put those two together and this stops looking like a one-off deal and it starts to look like a strategy. And the basic public question is straightforward. Is this a smart public investment in regional transportation access, or is this government taking on private market risk for the benefit of the airlines? That's the question underneath all this. The city's case is easy enough to understand. Columbia is not a huge metro. Airlines are cautious. Routes in the markets this size come with risk. If the city wants more destinations, more frequency, and a stronger airport, city leaders believe they have to come to the table with incentives. Airport manager Mike Park said that directly. He said communities competing for air service are bringing incentive packages, and the Columbia's revenue guarantee fund gives the community the ability to recruit airlines to start service here or add routes while offsetting that risk. And politically, the argument has traction. An airport is easy to sell as economic infrastructure. Better service helps business travel, it helps university access, it helps recruitment, helps local travelers avoid driving to St. Louis or Kansas City. It has a very visible public use, and that's part of why the American Airlines deal appears to have moved through City Hall with very little hesitation. The City Council approved the arrangement unanimously and enthusiastically. That matters because it tells you the real debate inside city government is not whether Columbia should be using incentives at all. On the evidence so far, the city has largely answered that question, and the answer is yes. Now to understand how Columbia is doing this, you have to understand the Central Missouri Air Service Fund. This is not just a jar of money sitting around for vague airport purposes. It's a structured fund maintained by the city to help recruit or expand commercial air service at Columbia Regional Airport. City legislation adopted in October of 2023 formally authorized the city's finance department to maintain the fund for future air service enhancements and authorized the city manager to enter into participation agreements with public and private entities willing to contribute. That's important for two reasons. First, it means this is not an improvised arrangement. The city has built an actual policy tool for this purpose. Second, it means the city has created a mechanism that sits somewhat outside the normal way the public thinks about city appropriations. The city council still matters. The city still controls the account, but the structure is designed to gather outside contributions and use them in support of airline service deals. And this is not Columbia's first time doing something like this. The documents show the current fund is really the latest version of a model the city has used before. In 2012, the city approved an Air Service Guarantee Participation Agreement involving Boone County, the University of Missouri, the City of Jefferson, Cole County, and the and Chamber of Commerce members with a total package of $3 million tied to American Airlines service. Records later show that roughly $1.8 million in contributions plus interest was eventually returned to the original contributors in 2015. Then in 2017, there was another United Airlines agreement under which the city could be required to pay up to $600,000 as a revenue guarantee, depending on support from public agencies and private partners. So this is not some radical new invention. It's better understood as a continuation and maybe even a modernization of a long-running strategy, pool public and private support, reduce airline risk, and try to keep or land service that the market may not provide on its own. The participation agreement is unusually candid about the purpose. It says improved air service is in the interest of Columbia and the participating entities, and that a revenue guarantee fund is being established to minimize economic risk to airlines and help with startup costs that might otherwise keep new service from launching. It also says the fund will be used solely for paying an airline for revenue shortfalls required by an air service agreement. The language matters because it strips away any fuzzy phrasing. This is not about bricks and mortar, it's not about a terminal project, it's not about runway work, it's not a general airport capital fund. It is, by design, a risk-sharing pool intended to backstop the business side of airline service if revenues come in below expectations. And in the current round of details, the fund is being used right alongside direct city money. The recent American Airlines Charlotte Agreement totals $1.5 million, split evenly between $750,000 from the City of Columbia and $750,000 from the fund. The expected allegiance agreement for two Florida routes totals $1 million with $800,000 from the city's annual budget and $200,000 from the fund. Documents also show a 2025 United Airlines Denver agreement that involved $1 million in federal grant money and $250,000 from the Central Missouri Air Service Fund. That gives you the operating model. The city gathers money from willing partners. The money is placed in a dedicated fund. It is used only for defined guaranteed obligations tied to air service agreements. Contributors are capped at what they put in. They get reporting, they can request audits, and if the money remains after the guarantee period, it's supposed to be returned proportionally. On paper, it's a tidy system. In policy terms, though, the harder question is whether tidy structure makes the underlying principle more defensible. Supporters will say yes. They will say air service is not just a private perk. It's a public facing infrastructure in a functional sense. They will argue that Columbia cannot sit back and hope airlines act out of civic loyalty. They will say other markets are offering incentives, and if Columbia refuses to do the same, it will lose out. And they will say the public benefit is broad enough to justify public participation. And there is real force to that argument. But the counterargument is real too. A revenue guarantee does not create a publicly owned asset. It reduces the exposure of a private company. If the route does well, the airline keeps the upside. If it struggles, the public absorbs at least part of the downside up to an agreed cap. That is why critics frame this as a government socializing losses while privatizing gains. And that critique will get sharper as the practice becomes more regular. One airline deal can be pitched as an exception. Two begin to look like policy. And if the city continues this approach route after route, then Columbia is not just helping one launch. It's moving toward a standard practice of using public resources and publicly controlled pooled money to insulate private airlines from ordinary market risk. That is where the legal question comes in. Public interest lawyer Dave Rowland has argued that arrangements like Columbia's may violate the Missouri Constitution's restriction on using public funds or public credit to support private enterprise. The city's likely defense is that it is not simply subsidizing a company for its own sake, but preserving or purchasing a broader public transportation benefit that the market would otherwise fail to provide. That legal line is not simple. Courts generally look at the details in these cases. What is the public purpose? How direct is the public benefit? What control does government retain? And what exactly is government getting in return? But whatever happens legally, politically, the city is behaving as if it believes the case for this strategy is strong enough to move ahead. And maybe that is because airline service is one of the easier subsidies for government to defend. People use it directly. Business leaders ask about it. The lack of service is obvious, and new routes could be announced in a way that feels tangible and forward-looking. That is easier to sell than many other forms of business incentive. Still, there's accountability questions the city has not escaped. One is disclosure. The agreements with American and Allegiant were not disclosed when the city announced expanded service in media releases and press conferences in December. The allegiate negotiation came into clear public view only after the city fulfilled a records request from Como Buzz.com tied to the Central Missouri Air Services Fund. That does not necessarily mean anyone broke a rule, but it still matters. If city leaders believe the public benefit is broad and real, then they should be ready to explain the cost, the structure, and the theory behind these deals plainly and early. Another question is how much exposure the city is willing to take over time. Today it's Charlotte, Orlando, and Destin. Tomorrow it could be something else. At some point, residents have the right to know whether Columbia is using occasional incentives or whether it's building an ongoing airline recruitment policy dependent on public backed guarantees. The facts now point in one direction. Columbia has already agreed to support American Charlotte service with a first-year revenue guarantee of up to $1.5 million. Airport officials say they're working through a $1 million agreement with Allegiant for Florida routes. The Central Missouri Air Services Fund exists as a vehicle for these efforts. And now city government is showing little sign that it considers this approach either unusual or improper. That may prove to be sound policy, or it may prove to be an increasingly aggressive use of public resources to back private business decisions. But what it is not anymore is isolated. This is the direction Columbia is taking. Let's move on now to the briefing board and two other important developments from this week. First, Columbia is moving toward asking voters for a major public safety sales tax increase. The City Council is set to take the first formal step toward putting a 1% public safety sales tax on the August ballot. The ordinance at first reading would call a special election for August 4th, asking voters whether the city should impose an additional 1% citywide sales tax dedicated to police and fire services. The measure will return to the council on May 4th for a vote. This is a big proposal. City staff estimate the tax would generate about $38 million. The money would go into a new public safety fund, separating police and fire expenses from the general fund expenses. Staff also say that new revenue would come in addition to annual transfers from the general fund to support public safety. And staff has already laid out a wish list. It includes hiring 50 police officers over four years and 40 firefighters over four years, building a new police facility, buying vehicles and equipment, building two new fire stations, renovating three current stations, developing a police and fire technology plan, and maintaining competitive wages for both departments. Now the ballot language would see it broader than that list. It would ask whether Columbia should impose the additional citywide sales tax solely for the purpose of improving public safety, with spending limited to equipment, salaries and benefits, and facilities for police and fire departments. The politics here are going to be worth watching, not because public safety is hard to argue for, it is usually not, but because a full extra cent citywide is substantial. Columbia's current total sales tax rate is 7.975%. That includes 2% for the city itself and 1.75% for Boone County, not counting additional taxes in certain community improvement districts and transportation development districts. If voters approve this measure, Columbia would add another one cent citywide, specifically for public safety. That makes this more than a routine ballot question. It's a major revenue proposal. And once it clears council, the argument shifts out of City Hall and into a citywide campaign over whether voters are willing to pay significantly more at the register for police and fire expansion. The second item on the briefing board this week is downtown safety in a lawsuit tied to the rise on 9th. The owner of the student housing tower at 915 Locust Street says the City of Columbia building officials sighted the property after deteriorating exterior panels created a hazard for pedestrians below. According to the lawsuit, those safety concerns led to temporary protective canopies around the building. That's the part that jumps out immediately because this is not just some remote industrial site. This is one of the busiest parts of downtown Columbia near the university with heavy foot traffic. According to the petition, the facade problems were not cosmetic. The owner claims the city issued several safety violations because of the risk of injury to pedestrians from falling panels. The owner says those city actions forced it to arrange for protective canopies and netting around the building at a substantial cost. The lawsuit itself is a construction defect case. DRI slash Article Columbia LLC accuses RG Brinkman Company of defective design and construction of the building's exterior fiber cement panel cladding system. The owner alleges the entire facade system now requires full replacement at an estimated cost of more than $5.8 million. The petition traces the claimed problems back to 2016. According to the suit, the panel supplier warned in writing that if metal screws were used to attach panels to the metal channels, the channels need to be 16 gauge to avoid screw pullout risk, and it also warned to use rivets instead of screws. The owner alleges the subcontractor instead used 18 gauge channels and screws rather than rivets. The suit also alleges inadequate air gap spacing, improperly sized holes, and over-tightening screws that contributed to cracking and warping. Later inspections described in the petition identify extensive damage. The owner says a 2022 facade review found 393 damaged panels and concluded similar fastening deficiencies likely existed throughout the building. Now all of that is an allegation at this stage, but the city's safety angle matters regardless, because the lawsuit says the condition deteriorated enough that the city issued safety violations over the danger to people walking below. That's not just a dispute among contractors. That's a public safety story in the middle of downtown. This week's receipts segment takes us to city utilities and a technical issue that has real financial consequences. The City of Columbia's electric utility staff, with support from Water and Light Advisory Board, is pushing a change that would let the city recover millions more in power costs through its power cost adjustment, or PCA. The proposal would raise the PCA cap from 15% of the residential first-tier energy rate to 25%. Now here's the plain language version. The utility says it has a real cost recovery problem. Staff projected about $94.4 million in annual net power costs and obligations for fiscal year 2026. Staff also projected the base rate plus year-to-date PCA billings would recover about $74.6 million, leaving a gap of about $19.8 million over the fiscal year. Staff attributed that gap to higher purchased power costs tied to rising energy prices. So this is not fake. The recovery problem is real. The question is whether the city is using the right tool to deal with it. Retired former assistant utilities director Jim Windsor argues the board is trying to solve what is really a rate design problem with the wrong mechanism. He says raising the PCA cap is essentially a rate increase without calling it that, and that the city should instead ask what formal rate increases is actually needed. That sounds technical, but it matters because of who pays. The PCA is a uniform cents per kilowatt hour surcharge that applies broadly across customer classes. That means every additional kilowatt hour gets hit the same way. And when usage is very large, the bills get very large fast. As of February, staff data showed the PCA translated to about $10.88 a month for an average residential customer using 800 kilowatt hours. For a large general service account, the average monthly charge was about $385. For an average industrial customer using more than $860,000 kilowatt hours, the average monthly PCA charge was about $11,712. After five months of the fiscal year, the cumulative PCA totals shown in the report were about $54 for an average residential customer, about $1,924 for a large general service customer, and about $58,000 for an average industrial customer. Then look at what happens in the city's own scenario tables if the cap rises. Using fiscal 2025 power cost assumptions, the annual PCA total for the average industrial customer is shown at about $125,000 under the 15% cap scenario. Under a 25% cap, that rises to about $178,000. Large general services rises from about $4,300 to about $6,100. Residentials rises from about $115 to $164. So indeed everyone pays more, but the scale is radically different. That is what is Windsor's point. Not that industrial customers should pay nothing, but that the city should stop treating this only as a surcharge question and start treating it as a pricing question, because the burden lands very differently depending on customer class and usage pattern. The clean argument for the board's recommendation is simple. A higher cap lets the utility recover more of its rising power costs now. Under the city's cap scenario analysis using fiscal 2025 assumptions, a 15% cap would leave about a $11 million unrecovered gap at the end of the year. At 70%, that falls to about $9.2 million. And at 20%, about $7.2 million. At 25%, about $4.4 million. In other words, raise the cap in the uncovered portion shrinks. So that part is easy. The harder part is whether City Council will get a full comparison between a higher PCA cap and a conventional rate increase by class and by usage pattern before it acts. The records do not show that kind of detailed public comparison, and that is why this belongs in the receipts. Because once a utility reaches for a mechanism that can move tens of thousands of dollars a year onto a single large user, City Council should be asking not just whether costs are real, but whether the recovery method matches the city's own policy goals. Coming up, a couple things we'll be watching in the week ahead. One is Boone Health's cardiology transition. Boone Health says it plans to have a fully functional cardiology unit up and running on May 7th, one day after its contract ends with the Missouri Heart Center. Boone Health also confirmed this week that is it is already hiring former staff from the Heart Center. If that holds, Boone may end up operating with many of the same players, but under a new structure and without the earlier contractual agreement. That's a major development in one of the biggest local health care stories of the year, and we'll keep pushing for confirmation and details at Comobuz.com. And we'll also be watching Columbia City Council as that public safety tax proposal moves deeper into the formal process. Monday was the first reading. The next major council action is expected May 4th. If council advances it, voters get the final say in August. The through line this week is public money and public risk. At the airport, Columbia is increasingly willing to put public backed resources behind private airline service in the name of connectivity and growth. At City Hall, leaders are prepared to ask voters for a major new public safety tax. And at the utility, staff are pushing a cost recovery charge that may have very different impacts depending on who uses the power. Those are different stories, but they raise the same basic question. How much public burden should government be willing to place on the table, and how clearly is it explaining the deal to the public when it does? That's it for this week's Como Buzz Insider Briefing. You can find full reporting on these stories at Como Buzz.com. And as always, we'll keep following the documents, the votes, and the details that matter most. For Como Buzz.com, I'm Mike Murphy. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next week.