This November, registered voters in Albemarle County will be voting on more than just the presidential and congressional elections.
Albemarle voters will decide in a referendum whether the county will be authorized to issue $35 million in general obligation bonds to fund a school renovation projects throughout the county.
The four main projects the bond revenue will fund include school security improvements, the addition, modernization and renovation of Woodbrook Elementary, learning space modernization at several schools and the addition and modernization of Western Albemarle High School science labs.
In July, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted 4-2 in favor of requesting the circuit court to allow a special November election for a bond referendum.
Citizens registered to vote in Albemarle County will be able to vote in the election. This includes a portion of the University population within the University Hall Precinct.
Students who are registered to vote in Virginia and have listed their address in the New Dorms, Old Dorms, Brown, Lambeth, Copley, Faulkner, Gooch/Dillard, Lawn Rooms, the Range and houses on the west side Rugby Road up through Lambeth Lane will vote in Albemarle County.
Students registered to vote in the City of Charlottesville — which includes 14th Street, Wertland, Jefferson Park Avenue, Houses on West Main Street, the Flats, Uncommon, Bice, the Language houses and the IRC — will not have the referendum on their ballot.
The bond issuance would be required to fund these projects because the county’s capital improvement plan budget is not large enough to cover the costs.
To fund the bonds’ interest rates, the issuance may require a property tax rate increase of 1.3 cents, the equivalent of a $37.05 increase on the median home value in the county of $285,000.
Assistant County Executive Lee Catlin said that since the County Board of Supervisors passed the request, the county’s objective with regard to the bond has been to educate voters on what they will be voting for.
“We had a public education plan that was developed with our county attorney's office and the school division and local government that was approved by the Board of Supervisors that involves the combination of websites, printed materials, social media, public community forums, direct mailing to all county voters,” Catlin said.
Although there are several outreach methods, Neil Williamson, president of the Free Enterprise Forum, said he believes there are areas to improve. Williamson does not take a particular stance on the bond referendum.
Williamson said the county’s informational presentations could be more neutral and transparent.
State law permits the distribution of educational material regarding referendum elections, but according to the code, “the materials or advertisements shall not advocate the passage or defeat of the referendum question.”
Williamson cited a statistic in one presentation that 40 trailers are currently used by county schools for classrooms, but the referendum would not come close to removing all of those trailers.
“I’m not convinced that the presentations I’ve seen tow that line as cleanly as the legislators perhaps wanted it to be done when [the state] enacted the law,” he said.
Economics Prof. Carter Doyle said while voters will likely see school renovations as a good investment, they may be frustrated with the tax increase.
“People are already probably paying higher taxes based on rebounding home prices. Someone whose house was worth $500,000, now assessed at $520,000, the county is saying your house is worth 20,000 more,” Doyle said.
Doyle said voters may be worried about setting a precedent that would see the county having more bond referendums down the line, which if passed would require the county to increase taxes even more.
Katie Brandon, a third-year College student and active member of the Student Council’s legislative committee, said information about the bond will be posted on the U.Va. Votes website, and the the council is working out other means of education.
The county’s last bond referendum was in 1974, which was used to fund the construction of Western Albemarle High School.
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