By GEORGE WHITEHURST
Members of the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors are seeing red over the School Board's demand for more green.
Supervisors interviewed yesterday expressed shock and anger over the School Board's threat of a lawsuit to block a $41 million school-bond referendum slated for Nov. 8.
"It's funny that the School Board wants to spend taxpayer dollars to sue us for trying to save taxpayer dollars," Supervisor Hap Connors said.
The School Board had asked the supervisors for a ballot initiative authorizing the county to borrow up to $184 million for school construction, school bus replacements and technology upgrades.
But the supervisors balked at that figure, citing a recent independent efficiency audit that suggested the school system could save as much as $31 million in its next round of school construction.
The report, produced by Texas-based Gibson Consulting Group, concluded that Spotsylvania's last six schools cost 23 percent more than the state construction average on a per-pupil basis.
The supervisors cut the School Board's bond request after School Superintendent Jerry Hill said the system wouldn't have time to incorporate the Gibson recommendations into its plans before the Nov. 8 referendum.
The $41 million school-bond ballot referendum has since been approved by a circuit court judge, according to Spotsylvania County Attorney Mark Taylor.
The petition seeking the referendum included both the School Board's $184 million request and the supervisors' approval of the $41 million ballot question.
The School Board passed a resolution Thursday accusing the supervisors of violating both state statute and the Virginia Constitution.
Taylor argued yesterday that the supervisors have the law on their side as they try to look out for the taxpayers.
"The statute merely says that the Board of Supervisors can only request an order for a special election on the issuance of debt for school purposes if the School Board has asked the supervisors to take such action," he said. "Nothing in the statute expressly or necessarily compels the Board of Supervisors to take any action following such a request.
"That the Board of Supervisors can just say 'No,'--either expressly or by simply doing nothing--necessarily implies that the supervisors also have the authority to request an order indicating less money for school purposes than requested by the School Board."
School Board attorney Pat Lacey disputed that assessment.
"The Public Finance Act, which is an act that's adopted by the General Assembly of Virginia, required that before a board of supervisors may issue bonds for school projects, it must be requested to do so by the School Board," he said.
"The attorney general has rendered opinion some time ago that the provisions of the Public Finance Act mean the board of supervisors cannot alter the amount of the bonds specified in the School Board's resolution," Lacey said.
The School Board hasn't yet filed suit.
But its Thursday resolution already has inflamed the often-tempestuous relationship between the supervisors and the School Board.
"I'm really flabbergasted that they have nothing else to do," Supervisor Gary Jackson said. "I don't see how this advances educational opportunity for children in Spotsylvania County."
Jackson suggested he will give a cool reception to future monetary requests from the School Board.
"My confidence in their judgment is eroding rapidly," he said. "So when they ask me for money, and this is how they want to spend money, I don't have a very good attitude. I'm really disgusted by it."
Board Chairman Bob Hagan complained of the school board's decision to "communicate with us through the newspaper."
School Board Chairman Martin Wilder responded that the supervisors are the ones guilty of not communicating.
"Without any communication from the Board of Supervisors they chose to reduce it to the $40 million amount, and when that occurred we felt we needed to sit down with the two boards together and discuss that, so we asked for that opportunity and it was not granted," Wilder said.
The $41 million bond question will provide the school system enough money to begin planning for school construction and other needs over the coming year. A future referendum or referenda would complete the financing.
Wilder said he's worried that such a strategy might permit design of a school, but that rejection of a future bond request might kill the construction plans.
Hagan said yesterday that he proposed a two-year referendum to Wilder.
The money from the referendum would be stretched over two years, with another initiative to appear on the ballot in 2007. But Hagan said Wilder wasn't keen on that plan.
"Dr. Wilder's first response to me was political," Hagan said. "He did not think his board would want to be campaigning for re-election at the same time the schools were asking for a bond referendum. That is why the Board of Supervisors was thoughtful enough to limit the time to one year. And now, they're screaming like there was some harm done."
Supervisor Emmitt Marshall lamented the latest rift between the two boards.
"I thought up until that time that the Board of Supervisors and the School Board were working together pretty well," he said. "But we'll just have to live with it, I suppose."
But Supervisor Chris Yakabouski is itching to take this fight directly to Spotsylvania taxpayers.
"It seems to me that [the School Board] has no desire to reign in their spending, actually want to spend money wastefully and want to have a disagreement with us while we're looking out for taxpayers and taxpayers' dollars," he said.
To reach GEORGE WHITEHURST: