Marty Gordon
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Montgomery County leaders learned this past week several schools in the county need major maintenance work.
But the bottom line is where the funding will come from to assist with the individual projects.
A video showed peeling paint at elementary schools in Blacksburg, where several modular units are still being used, and crumbling steps. The long list was part of a discussion during a joint meeting of supervisors and school board.
The following projects (2026-27) have been identified by our ZMM Architects and Engineers facility study as critical for the next 24 months. Funding for these initiatives is secured through capital allocations from the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and interest accrued from the Christiansburg High School project.
Those projects for this coming fiscal year total $8.624 million and include: $183,717 for replacement of existing exterior at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, $370,000 for outside building work at Kipps Elementary; $619,200 for replacement of tennis courts at Christiansburg High School, $272,000 for stair replacement at Montgomery Central; $4.286 million for HVAC replacement and upgrades at Auburn Elementary School; $99,000 for a generator replacement at Auburn Elementary; $707,200 for tennis court replacements at Eastern Montgomery High; and $2.087 million for electrical replacement and concrete stair replacement at Shawsville Middle.
There is a long list for the next five years, and county leaders are examining how to pay for the renovations.
The school district’s staff has estimated it will take $156 million to make many of these upgrades in 2028 to 2036. The breakdown per the school division shows the Blacksburg Strand will be the highest on the list at $82 million. The Christiansburg Strand shows a need of $33.6 million, Eastern Montgomery $38.9 million and Auburn comes in at $1 million.
The discussion included a new one percent sales tax, approved by the General Assembly, which can be added in every locality. This tax would generate revenue specifically for school construction and modernization projects across various jurisdictions in Virginia.
According to one state report, more than half of Virginia’s schools are more than 50 years old, and the cost to replace those schools is nearly $25 billion. Early numbers show the sales tax could generate as much as $5 million a year for the smaller localities.
The new item would have to be placed on the ballot for county residents to approve, and voters in a dozen localities are set to vote on the measure this November.
The one percent tax cannot go into effect unless approved by local voters via the referendum. The earliest it could appear on the ballot in Montgomery County is 2027 or 2028.
The monies could only be used for capital projects, such as building new schools, fixing aging facilities and related construction debt.
