LITTLE ROCK — Beginning April 1, the amount most people pay to park at the state’s largest airport will go up.
That is when Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/ Adams Field no longer will absorb state, county and city sales taxes in its parking rates and instead will pass those taxes on to its parking customers.
Last year, those taxes amounted to $770,962 on parking revenue of $9,070,143.
Airport patrons will see a range of increases in the amount of money they pay to park, depending on which lot they use. The most economical lot is the Peanut Lot where it costs $8 per day to park. Beginning April 1 the cost will rise to $8.68. People using the valet lot will pay $17.35 per day instead of the current $16 per day. For the parking deck and short-term lots, the maximum rate now is $13 per day, which will rise to $14.11.
The Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, which sets policy for the airport,decided in November 2011 to absorb a city sales-tax increase that began Jan. 1, 2012, rather than raise parking rates to account for the increase while airport patrons were inconvenienced by the construction associated with the airport’s $67 million first phase of the renovation of its aging terminal.
Little Rock voters in September 2011 approved raising the city sales tax from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent.
At the time the commission approved absorbing the sales-tax increase, airport staff said they would revisit how the sales tax is treated.
Now, Clinton National charges parking fees with the all sales tax included. That will change April 1 when Clinton National will charge the daily rates plus tax.
In addition to the city’s 1.5 percent sales tax, the airport also is required to collect a 1 percent county sales tax and a state sales tax of 6 percent, for a total of 8.5 percent.
The commission voted unanimously at its regular monthly meeting Tuesday to accept the staff recommendation and pass along the tax to parking customers.
“I think the significant point on this is ... we delayed imposing what we are required to impose in terms of tax and there’s no - this is an important point - there’s no increase in our rates,” Commissioner Jim Dailey said at the commission’s regular monthly meeting Tuesday.
Ron Mathieu, the airport’s executive director, said the change will make parking easier to administer.
“This way, as the tax changes we do not have to go back and change all of our signs and our system and so forth, which is one of the reasons why we chose to absorb the 1 percent tax last year while the terminal was under construction,” he said.
“Most other parking lots” operate similarly now, Mathieu added.
Under the new system, airport customers will have to pay slightly more to park in July when a statewide sales tax increase takes effect. Voters inNovember approved a 0.5 percent sales tax increase for highway construction. It expires after 10 years. That means customers will pay $14.17 to park in the lots that have a maximum rate of $13 per day. The Peanut Lot will jump to a maximum of $8.72. The long-term lot maximum, which will jump from $10 to $10.85 in April, will bump up to $10.90 in July.
Initial rates in the parking deck, the short-term lots, the long-term lot and the Peanut Lot is $1 per 20 minutes, plus tax.
The policy will not apply to the metered parking lots, which will remain $1 for 20 minutes.
Airport officials said Tuesday that the first phase of the terminal renovation is scheduled to be largely completed by April 1. The renovations include remodeling the ticket lobby and passenger security checkpoint, terminal mechanical improvements and a new automated baggage system.
The first phase included about $5.3 million in contingency money that was not spent. Of that amount, about $2.8 million is unrestricted, and the airport plans to use that to extend the first phase to include restroom renovations and recharging stations in the terminal and the concourse for computers and mobile telephones.
The second phase is estimated to cost $175 million and includes remaking the terminal common area, the baggage area and the concourse, which will expand the number of gates from 12 to 16.
Some airport commissioners would like to add more restrooms in the concourse before it is renovated, but the estimated $1 million exceeds the amount of money left in the first phase available to spend.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 02/20/2013