Approval Of School Bonds Narrow

Loudoun residents have authorized the county government to issue more than $100 million in general bonds for three different county projects, two schools and a western Loudoun fire-rescue station, but rejected a countywide food and beverage tax by a two-thirds margin. This year marks the third time a meals tax has failed at the polls.

While they were approved, voters showed only tepid support for the two school bonds, to provide construction funds for an Ashburn area elementary school and a Dulles area high school, with neither school receiving more than 50 percent support of the ballots cast. The numbers do not include absentee ballots, which had not been counted as of press time. A higher number of voters this year also chose not to vote on the schools question. Approximately 6 percent of voters did not vote for one or both of the schools when they cast their ballot.

For the Ashburn elementary school, 49 percent of the ballots approved the $21,810,000 funding for the school, while 44 percent opposed. Every precinct in the Broad Run and Dulles district, which have seen the most growth in recent years approved the school, but all the Blue Ridge precincts, half the Leesburg and Catoctin precincts and all but one of the Sterling precincts voted no.

The Dulles area high school fared slightly worse, with only 48 percent of the ballots supporting the $82,235,000 funding and 45.6 percent opposing. The trends continued, with Dulles, Broad Run and Potomac all supporting the school. All of Blue Ridge and a majority of Catoctin, Leesburg and Sterling voted against it.

The results were surprising because school bonds typically win approval by wide margins. In 2007, the school bond questions passed with 64 percent of ballots in support and only 31 percent opposed.

Local leaders attribute the lukewarm approval of the school bonds to a myriad of reasons, including the poor economy, recent controversies over school locations, and misunderstanding on behalf of the voters about what they were voting on.

Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) said the referenda do not deal with whether the schools should be built, but only whether the county should borrow money for their construction.

"They're not voting on the decision to build the schools. I think there's some confusion there," he said. "They're only voting on a funding alternative."

School Board member J. Warren Geurin (Sterling) said he is always surprised that voters do not understand the way in which school construction works.

"The voters are choosing the method of financing, not the size of the building or its location, whether its an expensive or inexpensive building. It's all about the method of financing," he said.

Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) said he believes western Loudoun voters did not vote in favor of the eastern schools because of the many delays that have plagued plans for the next western high school.

"I think it's a sign of frustration," he said. Even so, Burton said he was surprised by the vote on the schools, calling it the closest he has seen in his many years in office.

"It could be that people are getting tired of paying for more schools every year, new ones," he said. "I think we've seen this coming on the schools vote for many years. But the lack of a large margin in eastern Loudoun is a surprise."

Miller said he believes some of the push back on schools stems from recent controversies over Woodgrove High School, the Rose property purchase and the Lenah school sites, which were rejected by the board of supervisors. The Dulles area high school on the referendum was included in the Lenah site and Miller said he believes that could have played a role in the result.

"I think the Lenah [situation] could have had some direct affect," he said. "People are really asking themselves some questions about the school board's judgments."

Geurin also said he sees a correlation between the supervisors' decision not to approve the Lenah site and the close race to support the funding of one of the school's in question.

"I think it had to do a lot with the supervisors' rejection of our choice of the Lenah site," he said. "I was asked at my precinct several times what is plan B?"

School Board member John Stevens (Potomac) said he believed the county's budget shortfall and concerns over further effects from the national economy were the driving factor behind the close schools vote.

"Last spring we didn't have the public support we generally had for our budget proposal with the board of supervisors, and I think this is just a difficult year. I think the community finds itself economically stressed, and they would really like to just put a hold on everything we are doing until the sky is clear, economically speaking," he said. "The problem with that is just that we don't stop growing, the number of kids keeps shooting up, and that is what is driving the need for new schools and funding sources."

Stevens said he was encouraged that the eastern portions of the county, where most of the schools are needed and are being built, are still supportive of funding more schools.

School Board Chairman Robert DuPree (Dulles) was also pleased that the school bonds passed, regardless of the margin.

"Everybody recognizes that there is a lot of economic uncertainty, but children are really important. I think it is a good sign that [voters] still recognize that we need to take care of our children," he said.

Just how the school system interprets the voters' message should become more clear next Tuesday, when Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick is scheduled to present is proposed 6-year construction plan to the school board.

The failure of the meals tax was expected, even before the emergence of a coordinated effort to oppose the referendum question. The Loudoun Coalition Against the Food Tax was founded just weeks before the election. The meals tax failed to carry even a single precinct in the county.

Coalition co-founder Nicholas Graham said the coalition was "very pleasantly surprised" with the result, but said that there were several factors he believes led to the defeat.

"It came during a presidential year. So with that amount of turnout, you never know what you're going to get. But we have a lot of new residents in the county and they may not have been educated on the meals tax before," he said. "Loudouners agree that this was the wrong tax at the wrong time for our working families, targeting a critical industry in our county."

If approved, the meals tax would have raised a projected $13 million, which county supervisors said would be dedicated to school construction and reducing the school system's debt. Members of the board of supervisors and school board had hoped that tying the referendum directly to schools would have helped its chances to pass.

"I admire the supervisors for asking voters to consider that as a way to broaden revenue," Geurin said. "The difference this time from the last two times was it was tied directly to schools, and here again that should have been a plus factor, but I'm not sure it was a plus factor because of all the controversy around other thing."

Loudoun has built 40 news schools since 1993, each of which is being paid for by 20-year loans that cost taxpayers about $122 million each year. The meals tax would have been a step to chip away at that number, Burton said.

"Right now, it's all coming from homeowners' property tax bill," he said.

On the flip side, every precinct in the county voted to support $8,585,000 in funding for a new fire-rescue station near Neersville. The station will replace the existing station, which no longer meets the needs of the fire-rescue department or county residents. The fire-rescue station was approved with 56.6 percent of voters supporting the funding, 37.5 percent opposed and 5.8 percent not voting on the issue.

The location at the intersection of Rt. 9 and Rt. 671 is designed to help provide for faster response times to Purcellville, Round Hill, and Hamilton when larger scale emergencies, such as active structure fires, require the resources of numerous stations to successfully address a blaze. To ensure that the new station will keep up with the county in the decades to come, the facility is planned to allow for expansion as needed. Initially it will only be constructed to meet the current needs of the area, but there will enough land for additional bays, bunk space or offices, as the station's needs change.