Marple Newtown reaches deal on cemetery assessment
The Marple Newtown School District has approved a motion directing Solicitor Mark Sereni to move forward with a settlement agreement that would increase the property valuation for SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery by several million dollars.
Wednesday’s motion indicates the implied fair market value for the property, currently about $2.55 million, would increase to $8 million for the years 2015 through 2018.
The property is currently assessed at $1.7 million, which would rise to $5,424,000 in 2015 and 2016, $5.2 million in 2017 and $4,888,000 in 2018, under the agreement. The aggregate annual tax dollar increase for those four years would be $253,694.
“Our board is very pleased with this settlement, which yields more than a quarter of a million dollars for the years at issue and over $50,000 in increased annual revenue to support public education in Marple Newtown,” said Board President Kathy Chandless. “We will continue to aggressively pursue all appropriate sources of revenue for our district so that our students can continue to receive the excellent education and programs they deserve at the lowest possible cost to our community.”
The settlement is the result of a tax dispute between the district, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and subsidiaries of StoneMor Partners LP, the for-profit corporation currently operating Archdiocesan cemeteries. StoneMor declined to comment Thursday.
Trevose-based StoneMor, the nation’s second-largest provider of funeral and cemetery products and services in the death-care industry, took over management of 13 Archdiocesan cemeteries in May 2014 under a 60-year lease agreement designed to help defray the archdiocese’s unfunded liabilities.
Three corporate entities – StoneMor Operating LLC, StoneMor Pennsylvania LLC and StoneMor Pennsylvania Subsidiary LLC – are the sole occupants of SS. Peter and Paul, but the Archdiocese retained ownership of the property under the $53 million lease through a holding company, Philadelphia Catholic Cemeteries LLC.
Marple Newtown filed an appeal for the cemetery’s 2015 real estate assessment with the county Board of Assessment Appeals in August 2014, according to a pretrial statement filed with the court in July. Marple Newtown said its appraiser placed the property value at $9.9 million for the 2015 tax year, $9.4 million for 2016 and $9 million for 2017.
The BOA rejected the appeal and indicated the assessment would remain at $1.7 million, according to the July filing. The district appealed the BOA’s decision to the Common Pleas Court.
The Archdiocese holding company also filed an appeal with the BOA the following year seeking a tax exemption, which was also denied. The two cases were consolidated in April 2016.
The Archdiocese and StoneMor, an intervener in the case, maintained that the property at 1600 S. Sproul Road is tax exempt because it is “an actual burial ground that is owned by and continues to be used by a non-profit entity that derives no private or corporate profit therefrom,” according to their pretrial filing. StoneMor and PCC also argued that the property is a “sacred burial ground regularly utilized for religious worship and related purposes.”
But Marple Newtown disagreed that the cemetery falls under provisions of the Consolidated County Assessment Law dealing with real estate tax exemption, which only applies to “churches, meetinghouse(s) or other actual places of regularly stated religious worship.”
The case was scheduled for trial before Judge Spiros Angelos earlier this month, but attorneys were able to reach a tentative agreement that required school board approval.
Philadelphia Catholic Cemeteries has also filed appeals with the Montgomery County Board of Assessment for Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Cheltenham and Calvary Cemetery in Lower Merion, according to electronic court records. StoneMor has also joined those appeals as an intervener.