Port of Ephrata passes budget, updates on new fuel

EPHRATA – The Port of Ephrata Commissioners met Tuesday night to pass its 2025 budget including the tax levy. The board also discussed the Jet-A fuel project and the annual track inspection.  

2025 Budget 

The board unanimously passed the 2025 budget. 

“I thought our budget went pretty well,” Commission President Nicholas Moore said. “We started, I think, a couple of weeks earlier this year, and so we look back at our meeting minutes, we've been discussing September, so we've had quite a few iterations and discussions as we've as we fine-tune the budget.” 

The starting balance for 2025 will be around $2.74 million. The planned 2025 income is around $2.57 million, and the expected expenses are about $2.18 million. The board predicts they will have an ending balance of around $3.12 million at the end of the year.  

“We had quite a bit of discussions and quite a few changes as we start basically from the previous year's budget and adjust it as it goes through,” Moore said. “The port is a pretty conservative organization. We try to always run in the green, and we are rarely in the red, just because we're a conservative organization out here at the airport.” 

The Port of Ephrata will be making enough money in revenue in 2025 when it will not have to pull money out of the general reserve. The airport revenue is expected to be at around $2.24 million and the expenses are at around $2.18 million. This will leave the airport with around $60,000 more in revenue than expenses for the upcoming year.  

Some of the projects the port will be working on this year include the selling of Jet-A fuel. In the budget, the cost of the project will be $94,500 plus renting a fuel truck for $28,500 until the fuel tank is installed and tested.  

The port will continue to sell AV-gas as well which is anticipated to cost $97,750 to buy the fuel and maintain the tank.  

“So, we have a lot going on, and some of these things are going to take a year, two years, three years to complete,” Executive Director David Lanman said. “There's always this ebb and flow of how things are going to be adjusted, depending on circumstances that pop up, depending on what companies move in. And so, I'm talking to a lot of prospective tenants and users of the airport, and so we get an idea of where the demand is going to ultimately be, and we want to make sure we're properly positioned for that.”  

The port is also doing some updates on the pavement for the runway. This is expected to cost around $5,000.  

“To put that into context as to the cost (of) the overall, essentially, a five- and 10-year plan that we're working on,” Lanman said. “Each piece has a purpose and they all basically work together. As far as securing the airport, prepping it for commercial type of operations, corporate type operations, freight operations, we have rail that we're looking at integrating into the overall operations.” 

The general tax levy was also passed by the board.  

The levy will increase by 1% next year which will give the port $278,533 for the following year.  

“We passed the same amount that we've levied every previous year that the state of Washington does,” Moore said. “The (state) has a rule on 1% so we requested that same 1% increase to the tax levy.” 

Jet-A fuel 

The Port of Ephrata has begun selling a second type of fuel at the airport. Jet-A fuel is currently being sold out of a trailer at the airport as the process of installing and testing the permanent fuel tank continues.  

“As of six months ago, we started selling Jet-A fuel,” Moore said. “It's truck dispensed, but we do have a pup trailer that's serving as a temporary tank right now. And then, once the permanent tank comes in, then we'll be able to buy larger quantities of fuel at a cheaper price.” 

The fuel tank is expected to be installed and in use by the third week of January.  

The port has been selling aviation fuel for about 20 years and Moore said that they noticed an increased demand, so they decided to expand and offer a second type of jet fuel.  

“Please understand this is more than just putting a fuel tank in, right? There's fencing that has to go up,” Moore said. “There were infrastructure changes that needed to have cameras. It's a bigger project.” 

Track inspection 

The board had previously approved a runway inspection for up to $2,000. Lanman updated the board that he had hired a company to inspect it at a cost of about $1,500. The track will be inspected Nov. 22.  

“They were already very familiar with this track, and they said that we probably will have very little repairs,” Lanman said. “They said it was in very good shape, and they doubt that over the course of the year that they were out here there should be much difference. So, the reason for going ahead with the track inspection is just to have the knowledge and then the documentation of the condition of track before we go into further discussions with this overall project.”