A major expansion is underway at Statesville Municipal Airport. Although the airport is owned by the City of Statesville, Iredell County is participating in the funding of the project.

The airport itself is tax exempt, but the county collects property tax on the aircraft housed at the facility.

As part of its funding commitment, the county agreed to reimburse the city one-half of the cost paid by the city for sewer improvements at the project. The county included a stipulation that if the bids exceeded the engineer’s estimate of $1,063,000, the county would be given an opportunity to decide whether to fund the additional cost.

It turned out that the engineers were not very good at estimating costs. The low bid came in at $1,547,081, about 45 per cent above the engineering estimate.

At their January 4 meeting, the county commissioners unanimously voted to fund one-half the added cost.

With so much already invested in the project, the commissioners no doubt felt that they had little choice but to approve the additional funding.

This is yet another case of the cost of a government project being grossly underestimated. One wonders how often the low estimates are a deliberate ploy to gain initial approval for the project.