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Boards clashing on cash

Spotsylvania School Board threatens legal action against supervisors over referendum.

Date published: 7/29/2005

By KELLY HANNON

The Spotsylvania School Board is threatening to take legal action against the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors over a bond referendum this November for school construction money.

Last night, the School Board met with an attorney for several hours behind closed doors before unanimously passing a resolution asking supervisors to allow the public to vote on a $184.8 million bond package, as the School Board has requested.

Supervisors recently amended the School Board's amount for the referendum, lowering it in June to a maximum of $41.6 million.

Unless the amount is raised back to the requested $184.8 million, the School Board's resolution states it will rescind its request for the bond referendum.

"The School Board will direct its legal counsel to take such action as deemed necessary to have the actions of the Board of Supervisors declared in violation of the Constitution and statues of Virginia and to contest the issuance of the bonds for capital improvement purposes," read a Spotsylvania schools' press release.

The $184.8 million would allow the school district, over the next four years, to build two new elementary schools, a middle school, the county's sixth high school, an addition at Parkside Elementary, a maintenance complex and renovate J.J. Wright Middle. The money would also pay for technology upgrades, land for future school sites, cafeteria equipment and school buses.

After the meeting, Spotsylvania Superintendent Jerry Hill said he hopes to avoid legal action, but there has been no fruitful communication between the two boards.

"They've been unwilling to meet," Hill said. "They've been unwilling to sit down and discuss the issues we've requested."

But when reached by phone late last night, Bob Hagan, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said he considers it too close to the election to make any changes to the referendum amount, other than to cancel it altogether.

"The only change we could make to it now would be to drop it, and I'm sure the Board of Supervisors would listen to that request, if that is the request the schools are making," Hagan said.

He added, "They haven't sent us any information."

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Date published: 7/29/2005