On Monday, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed an amendment to the Illinois Aeronautics Act, streamlining the process for channeling federal money to local airports.
Benjamin Leischner is Executive Director of the Quad City International Airport. He says the old system led to long delays and debts--all in a year when air traffic dropped sharply.
"Any federal award going to airports would have to, in essence, get channeled through the state Department of Transportation. They'd add in layers of bureaucracy and that would oftentimes slow down that money actually reaching the intended recipients by up to several years."
This amendment is the result of pressure from both airport officials and the state government to secure this change before the delays could have catastrophic effects on the workforce.
"The way this revised legislation works is it removes that requirement to where airports basically follow a federal system like every other state, to where we are the sponsors, we get the fund appropriated to our community and our airport, and it basically doesn't channel it through the state of Illinois."
With the change, the dozen commercial airports in Illinois can receive federal funds in a matter of days instead of months, matching the speed of neighboring states.
