DeKalb Times

Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore) is happy to see some of the funds from the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois capital plan being put to good use in his neck of the woods.

“The Rebuild Illinois capital plan I supported is continuing to invest in projects here in our region,” Keicher recently posted on Facebook. “It was announced over the weekend that DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport is among the airports set to receive funding for critical needs.”

All told, according to Capitol Hill News, somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 airports spread across the state are set to receive state funding over the next few months ranging from new runways and road relocations to the purchase of mowers and snow removal equipment.

Another $11.5 million will be contributed to the plan that the General Assembly passed and the governor quickly signed into law in 2019 will come from local sources.

With funding requests running through the Illinois Department of Transportation Division of Aeronautics, the state grants range from $36,000 for the Illinois Valley Regional Airport in LaSalle County to acquire a tractor with a flex wing mower to nearly $11.8 million for the Morris Municipal Airport in Grundy County for a crosswinds runway. The DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport does not offer commercial airline service. 

With Rebuild Illinois representing the state’s first capital plan in nearly a decade, the plan is a multimodal infrastructure package that also extends to roads, bridges, waterways, air travel and rail. Of the funding for Rebuild Illinois, more than two-thirds or $33.2 billion of it is earmarked for transportation work in accordance with the state’s 2016 “lock box” amendment that requires the state to use transportation related funds for their stated purpose.

Supporters of the plan insist over the next six years it is expected to create and support an estimated 540,000 jobs.