State taxpayer support of the 107 airports in Iowa will be reduced by nearly 40 percent in the next budgeting year under the plan Republican legislators crafted.

The eight airports that offer commercial passenger flights will get about $600,000 less. Representative Dennis Cohoon, a Democrat from Burlington, says the state funding helps the smaller commercial airports in Iowa that offer passenger service update their facilities.

“In my own case, in Burlington, we have flights out to Minneapolis, St. Louis, Chicago,” Cohoon says. “Without this funding and with reduced funding year after year, what’s going to happen is we’re going to lose those flights and, when that happens, the airport will close down.”

Read the full article on the Radio Iowa website.