Tinicum man blames airport deal for rising taxes in Interboro

MEDIA » Tinicum resident Zurdi Dobi stepped up to the microphone at Wednesday’s Delaware County Council meeting and told members — as he has before — that they should pay the Interboro School District more money.

At heart was the 2015 agreement made among the Philadelphia International Airport, the Interboro School District, Delaware County and Tinicum Township, which settled the legal battle surrounding the proposed runway expansion and guaranteed $1.864 million annually to the three taxing authorities. Each were to receive $620,000 annually. For Dobi, that wasn’t enough. “My contention is that the distribution of that money is not fair,” he said. “It should be according to tax rate ... (that) $1.5 million of revenue should have gone for the education of the Interboro School District has come to the county and to Tinicum Township.”

The $1.8 million was agreed in 2015 by Interboro, the county and Tinicum to be split in three ways equally among them as opposed to by millage rate, similar to a real estate tax bill in which most of the taxes are directed to the school district.

Delaware County Council Chairman Mario Civera took issue with Dobi’s claims.

“That’s your interpretation, that’s not the legal interpretation,” he said. “Never would we ever go to another body, whether it be a municipality or a school district, and force them to increase a tax.”

It’s not the first time Dobi has raised this issue.

Two years ago, a couple of months after the agreement was signed, he again appeared before council and told members they “should not rob the children of the Interboro School District.”

On Wednesday, he noted that the school district was on track to increase real estate taxes that night.

Dobi added, “Last year, they increased our taxes 2.9 percent, the year before that, they increased it 1.9 percent.”

With the pending tax hike, he said taxes were “almost 10 percent higher than they were in 2015 when the agreement was reached.”

He believed county officials should do something about that.

“You should get together with the township and the school district and return or renegotiate the distribution of that,” Dobi said.

Civera said all three bodies – the Interboro School District, Delaware County and Tinicum Township – all agreed to the equal third distribution of the $1.8 million and they signed off on that in the agreement.

Delaware County Councilman John McBlain explained more about the financial arrangements the airport has with the school district.

There are parts of the airport, such as the runways and Terminal A, which are not taxed and the Philadelphia International Airport has agreed to give a payment in lieu of taxes for these properties, which is what the $1.8 million is, he said.

Then, there are large portions of the airport complex, such as Cargo City, that are susceptible to real estate taxes.

“For everything that is taxable, they get their full share,” he said, adding that the assessed value of the taxable properties at the airport are in excess of $50 million. “There’s no split.”

In addition, he said the airport gave Tinicum Elementary School a flat payment of approximately $500,000 for soundproofing and other measures to offset the effects of the airport proximity.

“On top of that,” McBlain said, “Tinicum gets $20 million over the lifetime of the agreement for recreational infrastructure improvements that all benefit the kids and people that are there.”