West Deptford Schools Bracing for Sunoco Fallout

West Deptford school board President Christopher Strano didn’t hold back when he estimated the effects of a pending settlement on Sunoco's tax appeals at the Eagle Point refinery complex announced last month.

“It’s going to be devastating to our school system,” he said.

While the terms of that tentative settlement have yet to be disclosed, former Mayor Len Daws said during last year’s campaign the appeals for just Sunoco could be in the $8 to $10 million range, and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, at a press conference three weeks ago in front of the shuttered refinery, said it could be double that.

Add in the reduced tax rate on the property for future years—the refinery property currently generates just over $4 million in taxes annually—and the financial effects are obvious.

Strano said he’s been in constant contact with both current Mayor Ray Chintall and the county tax assessor to try to get a handle on what the school district’s exposure might be.

“We don’t have final numbers…but we’ve been doing a lot of work,” he said. “We have a little bit of an idea, and it’s not going to be good … I can tell you, going into this budget year, it’s going to impact us severely.”

Not knowing the final hit to the tax base heading into budget planning season—the board’s public planning session is 10 days away—complicates matters, but Strano said they're already trying to figure out ways to make the school budget work with a big hole in the annual tax levy.

“The direction we’ve given the administration knowing this is: Stop spending,” he said. “We’re going to have to get very creative in our budgets to balance it and make it right.”

Beyond the immediate effects of the Sunoco settlement, there’s also the possibility the township could settle with Coastal/El Paso, the former owners of the refinery, in the near future, as Chintall has previously said.

And while West Deptford as a whole has close to $100 million in Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) money coming in from the West Deptford Energy Station over the next 30 years, none of that money goes to the schools, Strano said, making the budget situation that much more difficult.