In article . com,
Jay Honeck wrote:

All good ideas. I think the reason we don't see airports working more
closely together is because of the way our gummint sets up the
competition for "grants".
At least in Iowa, if Grinnell gets $100K, that's $100K that Iowa City
won't ever see. This creates a quasi-adversarial relationship
between them, and creates a disincentive for the type of cooperation
you describe.

Welllll..... not exactly.

For GA airports, the local entity fronts 5%, the state fronts 5% and the
FAA provides the remaining 90%.

The state aviation organization solicitics requests from each airport
for grants in aid for projects they would like to perform. As part of
this process, the local entity must decide if it has the money to pay
for its share of the project.

The state organization then puts together its list of the most necessary
for safety and local economic reasons and submits it to the FAA for
cosideration. The amount of money the state legislature will give the
state aviation organization to pay for the state's share of the project
is also factored in to the total request the state organization will
make.

The FAA, after much deliberation, comes back with a lump sum AIP
grant-in-aid to the state organization.

The state organization then divies up its grant dollars to the local
airports for their projects based on a ranking of all the project
requests.