Funding for the Vicksburg-Tallulah Regional Airport – a red-hot issue among local governments about a decade ago – will become one again next month, as Vicksburg officials have invited the other three owners to discuss its future.

Under an agreement originally inked in 1983, Vicksburg, Warren County, Madison Parish and Tallulah supplemented the cost of operations at the airport at Mound, completed in 1993.

&#8220It’s a question of ‘Do we want to continue funding it?’” Mayor Laurence Leyens said Thursday. &#8220We absolutely want to have the conversation.”

Vicksburg also owns Vicksburg Municipal Airport and a 1998 vote to close that facility led to years of litigation initiated by users who wanted it kept open. The Supreme Court eventually ruled the city has the power to close Vicksburg Municipal, but by then Leyens’ first term had begun and the city had a change of heart.

During the litigation, Vicksburg Municipal was kept open by users, including LeTourneau, a major employer and received no city funds. Since then, the facility has undergone $650,000 worth of improvements via a state grant and its new commission is asking for city funds.

Both airports have always operated almost within the income generated by fuel sales, leases and landing fees. Exact figures were not available, but supplements to VTR have been from $25,000 to $100,000 per year.

A letter signed by Leyens and both aldermen arrived on the desks of Warren County officials and those on the Madison Parish Police Jury and Tallulah mayor Eddie Beckwith, wishing to &#8220discuss the future planning for Vicksburg-Tallulah Regional Airport and funding obligations.”

In their respective 2006-07 operating budgets, Vicksburg and Warren County allocated commitments totaling about $50,000 toward basic expenses at the airport, home to three private hangars and one that houses aircraft used by the Mississippi Valley Division-Mississippi River Commission.

Planned additions this year by the five-member authority that runs the airport included a $6,000 runway sweeper and a Z-drive riding mower pegged at $10,000, expenditures &#8220we desperately need to make in 2007,” wrote Dan Fordice, then Warren County’s representative on the board.

Another $1.8 million in longer-range, grant-funded capital improvements were noted, including a parallel taxiway with lighting and $250,000 in work to the T-hangars. About $1.6 million of that is sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration and the state of Louisiana.

Supervisors discussed the issue briefly Thursday as the board met informally. District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon, the only member of the current board in office when the county originally agreed to help support the airport, advised caution.

&#8220If you open the contract again, you’ll get more for what you bargained for,” he said.

In 2000, Selmon voted against an amendment that stipulated the county’s funding be forwarded to the airport board for disbursement. However, it passed 3-2.

The current authority has five members, each appointed by one of the four government entities except for one, which alternates between Warren County and Madison Parish every three years.

VTR was conceived as a replacement facility for Vicksburg Municipal due to an FAA stipulation that said it would fund regional facilities but not municipal facilities. Another issue was that industrial development and terrain issues prohibited expansion of Vicksburg Municipal.

VTR, built at a cost of $6 million with the FAA providing 90 percent of the money, is eight miles west of downtown Vicksburg. Vicksburg Municipal, west of U.S. 61 South, was built in 1950. Both have one-mile runways and neither has scheduled commercial service.