OFF PAGE ONE
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
East Oregonian
A7
Airport: Expanded services draw customers to Hermiston
Continued from Page A1
thought it would be, partic-
ularly using the pedals that
steer the plane while it is on
the ground.
“The landing ... that
was ... I may have run
into a building,” she said
sheepishly.
After getting to check
out what day-to-day life at
a small municipal airport
is like and asking questions
of the pilots who land there,
Melson said she still wants
to head to college and study
aviation after she graduates.
“If anything, it’s opened
my eyes to more things I
could do,” she said.
Melson isn’t the only teen
getting experience with avi-
ation. The airport’s repair
hangar opens its doors
to any interested teenag-
ers every Thursday from
6-9 p.m.
Soon Umatilla School
District will start bus-
ing kids to the airport on
Thursday nights as part of
its after-school STEM pro-
gram, and Leirvik said he
is working with Hermis-
ton High School to set up
something similar. Stu-
dents who participate in the
Thursday night sessions will
learn how to take apart and
rebuild an airplane engine,
among other skills.
Some
area
middle
schools have already taken
field trips out to the airport
in recent months. Adults can
also check out the airport
and learn more about avia-
tion at the airport’s monthly
breakfasts, where pilots and
others with an interest in
aviation are invited to gather
at 8:30 a.m. on the last Sat-
urday of every month.
Mike Martin is the
breakfasts’ “head pancake
maker.” Martin has a plane
and hangar in Hermiston
and has served on the city’s
Airport Advisory Com-
mittee for about 10 years.
He is excited about what
Gorge Aviation Services has
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Mechanic Lisa Sturgeon works on the annual maintenance inspection for a Piper Super Cub on Tuesday at the Hermiston
Municipal Airport.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
From left, Bud Van Ryn, airport manager Rolf Anderson Leirvik,
Dan Burns and Ron Linn have a discussion in the lobby during
coffee hour Tuesday at the Hermiston Municipal Airport.
A single-engine Diamond trainer owned by Gorge Aviation
Services sits on the tarmac in front of the office at the Herm-
iston Municipal Airport.
accomplished so far.
Martin said in the 1980s
Hermiston had city lead-
ers, such as Tom Harper,
who were passionate about
aviation. Once those lead-
ers moved on, however, the
airport was “forgotten” for
decades and not living up to
Aviation
Administration
grants. Those grants have
paid for a taxiway realign-
ment, pavement overlays,
new lighting and moving
and expanding the fuel sta-
tion. Now Gorge Aviation is
helping create a 180-degree
turnaround on the opera-
its potential.
“The airport needs to
grow with the city,” he said.
Martin said assistant city
manager Mark Morgan has
been a “godsend” for the air-
port in recent years as he has
worked hard to bring in mil-
lions of dollars in Federal
tions side with new pro-
grams and services, Martin
said.
“I want the community to
know these things are avail-
able to them, because a lot of
people don’t know all they
need to do is go there and
ask,” he said.
Taxes: Not everyone will see a big change in returns
Continued from Page A1
people already saw the ben-
efit in the form of bigger
paychecks. That’s because
the law forced employers to
change what they withheld.
But the system is far from
perfect, and many workers
didn’t have enough in taxes
set aside. Now, the IRS
wants that money.
In addition, the law
also eliminated personal
exemptions,
increased
child credits, limited pop-
ular deductions and gener-
ally upended many famil-
iar practices that determine
what happens at tax time.
That has taxpayers feeling
a bit unmoored.
“We were very com-
fortable with our tax law,
it had basically been there
since 1986, suddenly all
these things that were
very important to people
changed ... it’s all differ-
ent,” said Howard Gleck-
man, a senior fellow at the
Tax Policy Center.
Kraft and Elias are able
to pay their tax bill but
he’s still stunned. He even
tried to reverse-engineer
things to figure out where
they went wrong, diving
into page after page of IRS
rules. He painstakingly put
together all the numbers.
The couple ultimately
asked a CPA to verify the
figures they were seeing on
TurboTax. Crushingly, they
were correct.
Their total tax was
up slightly — by about
$300 because of changes
to their financial picture.
Their effective tax rate was
lower, but they still owed
the government.
“I feel like I have
reached a stage of grief of
acceptance,” he said. “In a
twisted way I should have
been paying this all year
and now I just have to pay
it in one lump sum.”
A number of experts
such as Gleckman are urg-
ing taxpayers to obsess less
about their refund or what
they owe when measuring
Previously, for example,
people who wanted to get
their pilot’s license had to
go up to the Tri-Cities for
lessons. That’s where Mar-
tin’s wife learned, and he
said the commute increased
the time commitment. Now
that instructors are available
in Hermiston, Martin is tak-
ing lessons for instrument
flying, or flying through
no-visibility conditions.
“It makes you a bet-
ter pilot ... I wouldn’t have
thought about it if I had to
drive up to the Tri-Cities,”
he said.
Anderson Leirvik said
there are five or six begin-
ners taking lessons right
now, another five who are
refreshing themselves after
years of not flying, and a
handful of experienced
pilots taking the instrument
flying classes.
In addition to having fly-
ing instructors available,
Martin said he also appre-
ciated the addition of the
mechanic shop. There is a
serious shortage of qualified
aviation mechanics in the
country, he said, and “you
don’t want just any Tom,
Dick or Harry working on
your plane.”
In that vein, while the
field trips, internships and
night classes for high school
students don’t directly bene-
fit pilots at the airport, Mar-
tin whole-heartedly sup-
ports them as a way to spark
interest in aviation careers
for young people.
He said the Airport Advi-
sory Committee is work-
ing on a 25-year plan for
the airport. The committee
would like to see the air-
port expanded someday, and
has come up with new ideas,
such as connecting the air-
port to the Eastern Oregon
Trade and Event Center so
that people flying in for con-
ferences and other events
there don’t need to pay a taxi
to take them up to Highway
395 and back down the next
road to EOTEC.
Hangar:
Building
would be
18,000
square feet
Continued from Page A7
AP Photos/Cody Jackson
At left, Kevin McCreanor works on a laptop near paperwork in Atlanta. The first tax filing season under the new federal
tax law is proving to be surprising, confusing (and occasionally frightening) for some Americans. McCreanor and his wife
normally get a sizeable refund each year. While they know waiting for a large refund isn’t the best strategy financially,
they like a refund and they put anything they get back toward their daughters’ education.
the effect of the new tax
law. These are just a sliver
of your tax picture.
But the truth is, many
Americans have come to
rely on refunds. About
three-quarters of U.S. tax-
payers typically get one
and they had averaged
around $2,800. For some
low-income households it
is the biggest cash infusion
of the year.
The
IRS
reported
Thursday that the average
tax refund as of the second
week of filing season was
$1,949, down 8.7 percent
from the year earlier. The
total number of refunds is
down 16 percent.
Experts caution it is too
early to draw conclusions
about a tax season that ends
in April.
Plus, the number of
returns — 27 million as of
Feb. 8 — is down 10 per-
cent from a year ago, due
in part to the partial gov-
ernment shutdown. The
picture will become much
clearer as more filings are
processed, refunds are
issued and the IRS gets
back up to full speed.
All the same, the initial
results have surprised early
filers and worried those
who haven’t yet tackled
their taxes.
Part of the problem cen-
ters around how employees
and employers adjusted (or
didn’t adjust) withholdings
from paychecks to account
for the law’s changes. The
government issued updated
withholding guidelines to
help employers determine
how much to set aside from
an employee’s paycheck to
cover taxes. Withhold too
much and you get a refund
at tax time; too little and
you owe.
It is at best, an estimate.
But it’s an estimate that
grew drastically more diffi-
cult to make under the new
law.
The
Government
Accountability Office esti-
mated in a report last sum-
mer that about 30 mil-
lion workers had too little
withheld from their pay-
checks, which made their
take home pay bigger but
increased their tax liability.
That’s about 3 million
more workers than normal.
Few taxpayers appear to
have heeded the IRS’ advice
to do a “paycheck checkup”
to make sure they had the
proper amount withheld.
Payroll processor ADP,
which is responsible for
paying one out of every six
Americans, said the vast
majority of people in its
system didn’t update their
withholdings last year.
Some taxpayers who did
make adjustments found
they couldn’t get it quite
right.
Kevin McCreanor of
Milton, Georgia, and his
wife normally get a sizeable
refund each year — it was
more than $12,000 last year.
While they know waiting
for a large refund isn’t the
best strategy financially,
they like a refund and they
put anything they get back
toward their daughters’
education. Their income,
earned primarily from his
wife’s job in telecom, can
vary greatly, so there was
comfort in never facing a
big bill.
The couple increased
her paycheck withhold-
ings to ensure the same but
found they are only get-
ting back $519 this year.
Their income and tax rate
did increase, and McCre-
anor acknowledges there
is probably more he could
have done to prepare but he
is very disappointed all the
same.
Some surprises were
welcome, however. Brian
Goodell and his wife typi-
cally face a tax bill of any-
where from $10,000 to
$15,000 each year. But this
year the Tigard, Oregon,
couple is getting a $15,000
refund. They believe they
got some benefit from the
increased child tax credit.
They also made more
charitable donations and
increased their withhold-
ings. While Goodell isn’t
entirely sure why it worked
out so well, he’ll gladly take
the refund.
Taxpayers can get a bet-
ter sense of how they fared
by looking at their tax lia-
bility or effective tax rate.
This information is often
available on the summary
received from an accoun-
tant or tax preparation soft-
ware. They can also look
at the “total tax” on those
summaries or form 1040.
These are not perfect mea-
sures either, but provide
some perspective.
And remember that get-
ting a refund is not neces-
sarily a good thing. Break-
ing even is really the best
outcome from an eco-
nomic point of view. If you
get a refund, that means
the government has been
holding onto your money
when you could have been
using it.
Also, consider that taxes
are rarely an equal compar-
ison from year-to-year, said
Eric Bronnenkant, the head
of tax at Betterment and a
CPA and certified finan-
cial planner. People’s lives
change in ways that can
dramatically influence their
taxes, such as marriages,
divorces, children, moving
or job changes.
designing and testing a driv-
erless air taxi concept.
Although PAE is a multi-
billion-dollar company, Air-
port Manager and Economic
Development Director Steve
Chrisman said defense con-
tractors often prefer leas-
ing existing infrastructure
rather than building their
own.
He anticipated that com-
panies would begin pri-
vately investing in their own
infrastructure once the air-
port hits a “critical mass”
in terms of development,
but until then, Chrisman
said the city would have
to provide space to drone
companies.
The city previously took
out a $1.7 million loan from
the state in 2015 to build the
hangar for A^3, but most of
that loan was forgivable if
the UAS range generated
165,000 in total labor hours
at the range by April 2022.
While the deal for the
new hangar is just a straight
loan, Chrisman said it could
reduce the burden of the
A^3 hangar loan by creating
“several dozen” jobs at PAE
ISR.
Because the rental reve-
nue exceeds the loan repay-
ment schedule, several
councilors supported the
idea of using all of the lease
revenue to accelerate the
repayment period from 25
years to 16 years.
Before the council unani-
mously voted to take out the
loan, City Manager Robb
Corbett said he didn’t see a
reason why the city couldn’t
continue to use state loans to
build hangars, especially if a
company expressed interest
in renting one.