Sussex council plans to consider options for school impact fee
A Sussex County councilman plans to start discussions Tuesday, May 13, on the possibility of creating a fee to support school construction, in response to an ongoing housing boom that has filled classrooms to capacity.
“While this issue has been going on for decades, it’s something that I believe in the near future we ought to address,” said Councilman Steve McCarron at an April 29 council meeting.
A voluntary school assessment will likely be discussed at the May 13 council meeting, as the annual budget workshop is scheduled for the week before that, McCarron said.
“That would have to be done through an action in the General Assembly, and when they go to recess June 30, we may lose our window until January of next year, stalling this if we want to make any efforts,” he said.
“If we’re seeking General Assembly efforts at this point, the window’s closing rapidly,” said County Administrator Todd Lawson. “They don’t like to see the introduction of legislation as we get closer to the end of the session.”
The state approved such legislation in 2023, but the impact fee failed to win any support from county council in January 2024, and the idea never came to a vote.
If council decides on an option that does not require state approval, then it would not have to worry about the Legislature’s schedule, Lawson said.
Some council members offered brief comments on McCarron’s suggestion before their lawyer, J. Everett Moore Jr., noted that a more in-depth conversation would come at a later meeting when the issue is included on the agenda.
Council Vice President John Rieley said he worried about the county setting a precedent by taking on some school funding responsibility, which has been the purview of the state and school boards.
“We collect the property taxes and pass it through,” Rieley said. ”But we don’t authorize it, we don’t set the rates. Really, it’s not our authority that generates that revenue.”
He said he worries that creating the fee would open the door to the state passing on more costs to the county.
Councilwoman Jane Gruenebaum said setting a precedent does not discourage her from supporting a fee.
“You’d have to start to look at doing some things differently in order to achieve our objective,” Gruenebaum said. “The objective is to secure sufficient funds for our schools to be able to function well.”
The county needs to investigate and consider methods to fund schools, she said.
“Today and on the campaign, what I had envisioned as it relates to school funding, was it to be used, if possible, as a sort of disincentive to discourage …” housing growth in rural areas, said Councilman Matt Lloyd.
The owners of 200,000 parcels in the county have been contributing to the cost of operating and constructing schools, Lloyd said. It seems fair that the cost of building new schools should be shared with people moving to Sussex County, he said.
Rieley said he believes the 4% state property transfer tax on home sales was intended as an impact fee for road and school construction.
New Castle and Kent counties have for years charged a one-time, per-unit school impact fee for each lot in large new residential projects, paid by developers in school districts facing overcrowding.
Cape Henlopen School District in recent months has asked Sussex County not to approve large housing developments until the county creates a school impact fee to fund construction to accommodate the students those projects will draw to the district.
Schools are at or over capacity, said Jason Hale, the district’s director of operations. Enrollment rose from 4,634 students in 2010 to 6,645 at the start of this school year.
As Sussex is by far the fastest-growing county in the state, such an impact fee would have raised millions or tens of millions of dollars in recent years, Hale said. Every dollar from an impact fee is one less that a district must raise through taxes, he said.
Some council members said they considered a school impact fee as an additional tax on homebuyers when they rejected the concept last year.
Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.
His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.
Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper.
Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.
