The final adoption of Virginia’s budget has authorized all localities to ask voters for permission to increase the sales tax by 1 percent to fund public school modernization and construction projects. If the electorate consents in November, $15 million a year will be generated for Charlottesville.
Fluvanna County supervisors have already adopted a resolution seeking permission from the Circuit Court to put the question on the ballot. The tax increase would only be allowed for 20 years.
Charlottesville City Council will hold a work session Wednesday at 4pm. at CitySpace to review school construction projects and current financing. It will also discuss a preliminary plan for using the proceeds from the sales tax increase to help pay for an anticipated $475 million construction and renovation budget through 2042. That includes a $150 million addition to Charlottesville High School and a new $50 million home for Lugo-McGinness Academy.
A third of the city’s capital improvement program already goes to education.
Each year, the city’s five-year capital budget sets aside $1.4 million in funds for priority improvements, such as the modernization of Trailblazer Elementary that is currently underway. There’s also $1.3 million for other projects, like the window replacements happening at Summit Elementary.
The current plan calls for new roofs at Sunrise, Jackson-Via, and Tall Oaks elementary schools, at $1.5 million each over the next three years.
There is a total of $30 million in the CIP allocated to a pre-K center to be built at Walker Upper Elementary School.
Council agreed in June with a staff recommendation to proceed with a plan that would keep the existing classrooms in place for “swing space” that could house students while another round of renovations is made to elementary schools. The draft spending plan calls for $75 million for new construction at Jackson-Via, $50 million for reconfiguration at Greenbrier, and $25 million each for upgrades at Summit, Sunrise, and Tall Oaks.
The current Walker scheme has a cost estimate of $51.4 million and would see the replacement of an existing gym to ensure elementary students have a place to exercise.
“It would be poor judgment to remove a gym from the site when we have all these plans for swing space,” said Mike Goddard, Charlottesville’s deputy director for public works, at a work session on June 10. “My professional opinion is it is worth $10 million for us to have a gym which will be useful long into the future.”
The school system is currently wrapping up construction of an expanded Charlottesville Middle School to house sixth grade students this fall. The entire project cost $92 million.
Another topic on the horizon is what the city might do with Oak Lawn, a Fifeville estate purchased by the University of Virginia that is being handed over to the City of Charlottesville as a consolation prize. Both entities competed to acquire the former Federal Executive Institute, but the federal government chose UVA.
