Longmont, Colorado • Vance Brand Municipal Airport (KLMO)
The Airport Is in Financial Trouble We’ve all felt it under the flight path. Now the City’s own consultant has put it in writing — and priced the one lever that fixes it.
The City of Longmont paid the firm Bolton & Menk to study its airport’s rates and charges. The 2026 study came back with a warning the City can no longer wave off: the Airport Fund’s working capital turns negative in 2028 and reaches a status the study itself labels “Critical” by 2030 — a roughly $743,000 slide into the red in five years. The same study prices the only revenue lever big enough to reverse it: a landing fee. What follows is the study’s own case, in the study’s own numbers — page by page.
Every figure here is the City’s own study — page-cited
Working capital by 2030
–$227,446
the study’s own status label: “Critical.” The fund opens 2026 at +$515,720.
The lever it prices
+$1.16M
the swing in 2030 working capital from a $2 / 1,000‑lb landing fee
Charged to the runway today
$0
no landing fee, no runway fee — on ~126,600 operations a year
The document
This time, the City commissioned it
This is not an argument from the neighbors. The Rates and Charges Study for Vance Brand Airport was prepared by the consulting firm Bolton & Menk and commissioned by the City of Longmont, dated 2026. On its face it benchmarks lease rates against comparable airports. But its stated purpose (p. 1) is also to “analyze the utility and financial implications of implementing landing fees on aircraft operating at the field.”
Bolton & Menk
the City’s own consultant — an independent, City-paid study (2026)
p. 1
purpose includes analyzing landing fees “on aircraft operating at the field”
2028
the year the Airport Fund’s working capital turns negative
“Critical”
the study’s own status label for the fund by 2030
What changed. Landing fees at LMO are no longer a fringe idea someone has to introduce from outside. They are now an officially studied, City-commissioned option with dollar figures attached. The question the study puts on the table is not whether to consider a landing fee — it is whether to pull a lever the City’s own consultant already drew.
Read it for what it is. The study is carefully diplomatic: it quantifies the money generously, then hedges hard on the politics and the legal risk so the City isn’t committed to anything. It hands over the ammunition while keeping the decision-makers’ fingerprints off the trigger.
The gap between a “$73.6 million economic engine” and an airport fund going insolvent by 2028 is the whole story — and now the City’s own consultant has documented both halves.
The trajectory
The fund goes broke on paper by 2028
Set aside the economic-impact rhetoric and open the five-year budget the study actually built. The Airport Fund — which the study notes “relies primarily on hangar rental fees” — opens 2026 with $515,720 in working capital. A single $1.01 million capital project (TRP012) consumes most of that cushion in year one; from there, operating costs outrun revenue every year. Working capital crosses into the red in 2028 and keeps falling.
Year
in the red ◀
▶ in the black
Ending working capital
2026
+$120,694
2027
+$28,510
2028
–$59,182
2029
–$140,265
2030
–$227,446
The fund opens 2026 with $515,720 of working capital; the $1.01M TRP012 capital project drops it to $120,694 by year-end, and it never recovers. Source: study Exhibit A Airport Fund Statement (p. 40) and Budget Pro Forma (pp. 34–37).
| Year | Working capital | Total available funds | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $515,720 | ~$1.91M | Positive |
| 2027 | Declining | — | Watch |
| 2028 | (–$59,182) | — | Deficit |
| 2029 | Deteriorating | — | Deficit |
| 2030 | (–$227,446) | ~$654K | Critical |
“Without corrective action — including new revenue strategies, expense controls, or identify alternative funding — the fund’s long-term fiscal stability is at risk.”
— Rates and Charges Study, Budget Summary (p. 37)
A two-thirds cut in the cushion. Total available funds fall from ~$1.91 million (2026) to ~$654,000 (2030) — a 66% reduction — leaving little room to absorb an unplanned bill, service debt, or match a grant. And there is $926,700 in unfunded capital projects already identified for 2026 (p. 37).
This is the part residents already sensed. The study just put a number on it: a net ~$743,000 working-capital loss over five years, ending “Critical.”
Why it’s happening
One revenue stream, rising bills, a decade of deficits
The study is blunt about the structure. Revenue is dangerously undiversified — the fund “relies primarily on hangar rental fees,” with essentially none of it coming from the runway. Operating & maintenance costs grind up about 3% a year (from $782,802 in 2026 to $881,051 by 2030). And the recent history is a run of red ink.
Year
deficit ◀
▶ surplus
Revenue − expenses
2020
–$17,596
2021
–$140,651
2022
–$523,995
2023
–$142,629
2024
–$245,019
2025
+$335,951
The study’s 2020–2025 actuals (p. 36). Expenses exceeded revenue in five of six years; 2025 was the first year in the black.
2025 finally cleared — but the study won’t call it a recovery. Revenue of $1,059,930 beat expenses of $723,979 in 2025, the first surplus in years. The study’s verdict: the improvement “is not yet self-sustaining,” and the fund “requires deliberate fiscal intervention to reverse the projected decline and restore long-term solvency” (p. 38).
This is normal — and that’s the problem. The study notes fewer than 20% of general-aviation airports operate in the black. Being “like the comparables” means running a deficit. LMO’s own five-year forecast is exactly that trajectory unless the City changes the fee structure.
A $1.01 million capital bill in 2026, $926,700 more unfunded, O&M rising 3% a year, and a single dominant revenue stream. The arithmetic only points one way.
The federal hook
The City already promised to make it self-sustaining
This isn’t only a budgeting choice. As a federally obligated airport, LMO’s sponsor carries FAA Grant Assurance 24 (Self-Sustainability) — and the study says the current rate structure doesn’t meet it.
Grant Assurance 24
requires the airport sponsor to “maintain a fee and rental structure that makes the airport as self-sustaining as possible under the circumstances at the airport.”
The study’s finding: existing lease rates “fall slightly below those observed at comparable airports and are insufficient to support long-term financial sustainability” (p. 5).
The framing writes itself. This isn’t “squeeze the pilots.” It is an airport that is structurally underfunded, legally obligated to be self-sustaining, sitting on the largest untapped revenue lever it has — the runway it currently gives away for free.
The lever
The one number that flips the fund back to healthy
The study models a landing fee at three levels, run through a third-party collector (Vector Aviation’s “Plane Pass,” which keeps 20% as a service charge). Every figure below is net to the airport after that haircut, and modeled both including and excluding based aircraft.
| Fee level | Transient traffic (net / yr) | + Based aircraft | Combined total |
|---|---|---|---|
| $3.00 / 1,000 lb | $243,292 | +$113,243 | $356,536 |
| $2.00 / 1,000 lb | $162,195 | +$75,496 | $237,690 |
| $1.00 / 1,000 lb | $81,097 | +$37,748 | $118,845 |
2030 ending working capital, with a $2 / 1,000‑lb landing fee
+$936,389
vs –$227,446 with no action — a swing of +$1,163,835 (p. 35)
Rate increases alone (2030)+$108,273
The landing fee adds+$828,116
–$227,446
insolvent — “Critical”
+$108,273
barely above zero
+$936,389
healthy — can fund the backlog
The landing fee is roughly 2.5× the entire rest of the package. Every other recommendation combined — higher ground lease, fuel flowage, ramp fees — adds about $63,234 in year one (p. 36). The $2 landing fee alone adds $162,195. Mathematically, it is the difference between a fund scraping just above zero and a fund that is genuinely healthy and can start clearing the $926,700 capital backlog.
And it’s demonstrably “reasonable.” The study’s recommended fee table lists a landing fee of $1.99 per 1,000 lb “if implemented” (p. 31) — the very low end of the market range it found ($1.99–$3.00, average $2.45). A fee at the bottom of the observed market is easy to defend as fair under the FAA’s reasonableness tests.
One documentation quirk to know before a skeptic raises it: the Scenario 3 narrative text says “$1.00 per landing” while its own table is computed per 1,000 lb (p. 30) — a minor internal inconsistency in the study, not in the underlying analysis.
All the other recommendations combined raise ~$63,000 in year one. The landing fee raises $162,000 — and turns “Critical” into a $936,000 cushion.
The design
One rate. Every aircraft. No carve-outs.
Keep it simple: a single weight-based rate, charged the same way to every aircraft that uses the runway — based or visiting, light or heavy, all at the same price per 1,000 lbs. No special exemption for hangar tenants. The only aircraft that don’t pay are the ones federal law already exempts — government and military (p. 27).
The same rate for everyone is also the hardest to challenge. The FAA’s core test is that similarly situated users be charged on substantially comparable terms (p. 32). A flat per-1,000‑lb rate applied to all aircraft alike is exactly that — nothing to argue is arbitrary or selective. At the recommended ~$2 / 1,000 lb it raises about $237,690 a year from all aircraft combined (pp. 28–29).
That makes the “Critical” fix a floor. The working-capital swing shown earlier is deliberately conservative — it counts only the visiting-aircraft share the study modeled ($162,195/yr). Charge every aircraft the same rate and the airport takes in more still, so the fund ends up even healthier than the +$936,389 the study projects.
No exemptions, no exceptions, no arguing over who’s special. Every aircraft that uses the runway pays the same rate for it.
The two attacks to expect
The study arms both sides — know both edges
The legal edge
A landing fee is legal — but a lawsuit is on the table. The study confirms the
statutory basis (49 U.S.C. §§ 47107, 47133; FAA Order 5190.6C Ch. 18; the 2013
Rates & Charges Policy) and notes City staff already agreed to submit any proposal to the FAA for
pre-review (p. 32). The sharp edge (p. 33): the fee can’t be a disguised access
restriction, and a tenant could file a Part 16 complaint — the study flatly says
“it could be likely that a lawsuit would be filed,” and pointedly did not estimate the
cost of defending it. That blank is the opposition’s main weapon; expect “what’s
our exposure?” to be the first question in the room.
The peer edge
No comparable Colorado GA airport charges it. Exhibit D (p. 66): Boulder,
Centennial, RMMA, Greeley-Weld, and Erie charge no general GA landing fee. Northern
Colorado Regional (KFNL) charges one only over 60,000 lbs — and it’s a
commercially certified airport with airline service; San Luis Valley’s is “airline or cargo
only.” The clean counters, all inside this same study: LMO faces documented distress and a federal
self-sustainability mandate the others aren’t reckoning with here; it is a Top-5 CDOT GA
airport at ~126,600 operations/yr with heavy transient wear (Exhibit E, p. 67);
heavier/transient fees are already precedented at KFNL; and “being like the comparables” is a
weak goal when most comparables also run deficits.
| Airport | GA landing fee? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Boulder (KBDU) | None | non-towered, 69,000 ops |
| Centennial (KAPA) | None | 314,071 ops, towered 24/7 |
| Rocky Mtn Metro (KBJC) | None | 191,533 ops |
| Greeley-Weld (KGXY) | None | none posted |
| Erie (KEIK) | None | 88,457 ops, none posted |
| N. Colorado Regional (KFNL) | Over 60,000 lb only | commercially certified, airline service |
| San Luis Valley Regional | Airline / cargo only | — |
| Vance Brand (KLMO) | $0 today | Top-5 CDOT GA · ~126,600 ops · 300+ based |
If the City builds it right, it survives challenge. The study’s own checklist (p. 33) for a defensible fee:
- a written landing-fee policy
- a documented cost-recovery methodology
- tied to airfield costs (runway/taxiway upkeep, lighting)
- …plus snow removal, pavement management, insurance
- a defensible basis (maximum gross landing weight)
- consistent application across similar users
- clearly justified exemptions
- record-keeping and advance notice to users
Build the fee up from those documented airfield costs — not a round number — and use the FAA pre-review pathway City staff already accepted. Then fill the one blank the study left open: the estimate of legal exposure.
What it adds up to
An independent, City-paid case for the one lever that works
Strip away the diplomacy and the numbers tell a single story. The non-landing-fee recommendations — higher lease rates, a fuel-flowage bump, ramp fees — are the “safe” package, and they matter, but they only lift the fund a few tens of thousands of dollars a year and barely clear zero by 2030. Only the landing fee actually restores the fund to health and gives it room to fund the capital backlog. The consultant knows it — the working-capital table proves it — and quantified the whole case while carefully preserving the City’s freedom to say no.
In advocacy terms that is close to ideal: an independent, City-commissioned document that establishes the crisis (insolvent by 2028, “Critical” by 2030), cites the federal mandate (Grant Assurance 24), confirms the legality (with a pre-review pathway City staff already accepted), quantifies the money (three scenarios, net of collection), and shows landing fees are the fix (a $1.16 million swing). The airport is in financial trouble. This is the study that says so — in the City’s own hand.
None of this is a bill or a legal opinion. It is what the City’s own 2026 Rates and Charges Study reports, read closely: lead with fiscal necessity and Grant Assurance 24, set a single weight-based fee at a market-reasonable ~$1.99–$2.00 charged the same to every aircraft, build the methodology from the airfield costs the study already lists, and fill the one blank it left — the legal-exposure estimate.
Sources & method
Show your work
Every dollar figure, quotation, and status label on this page is drawn from a single document: the Rates and Charges Study, Vance Brand Airport (Bolton & Menk, prepared for the City of Longmont, 2026). Page numbers are the study’s own printed pagination. Nothing here is a proposal, a bill, or a legal opinion — it is a close reading of a study the City itself commissioned.
- Stated purpose includes analyzing the “utility and financial implications of implementing landing fees on aircraft operating at the field” — p. 1.
- FAA Grant Assurance 24 (Self-Sustainability); existing rates “insufficient to support long-term financial sustainability” — p. 5.
- Based/transient fee modeling and the government/military exemption — p. 27.
- Landing-fee scenarios ($3 / $2 / $1 per 1,000 lb; net after the 20% Plane Pass service charge; with and without based aircraft) — pp. 28–30.
- Recommended fee table (landing fee $1.99 per 1,000 lb “if implemented”; market range $1.99–$3.00, average $2.45) — p. 31.
- FAA legal basis (49 U.S.C. §§ 47107, 47133; FAA Order 5190.6C Ch. 18; 78 Fed. Reg. 55330); City staff agreed to submit any proposal to the FAA for review — p. 32.
- Fee cannot suppress/deter access; Part 16 complaint & lawsuit warning (cost of defense not estimated); documented cost-recovery checklist — p. 33.
- Budget Pro Forma: working capital $515,720 (2026) declining to (–$227,446) by 2030; $1.01M TRP012 capital project; $926,700 unfunded — pp. 34, 37.
- Working Capital Analysis: a $2 / 1,000‑lb landing fee lifts 2030 ending working capital to +$936,389, an improvement of $1,163,835 — p. 35.
- Revenue impact ($63,234 non-landing recommendations, year 1); 2020–2025 actuals; “not yet self-sustaining” — pp. 36, 38.
- Budget Summary status table (Positive → Watch → Deficit → Critical); ~$743,000 net working-capital loss; ~66% drop in total available funds — p. 37.
- Exhibit A — Airport Fund Statement (beginning/ending working capital, revenues, expenditures, unfunded projects) — p. 40.
- Exhibit D — lease and fee comparison (no comparable GA landing fee; KFNL over 60,000 lb only; San Luis Valley airline/cargo only) — p. 66.
- Exhibit E — airport comparison chart (KLMO ~126,600 annual ops, non-towered, Top-5 CDOT GA airport, 300+ based aircraft) — p. 67.