Dear Montgomery County Supervisors:
I am writing you as a parent of upcoming 7th and 4th graders and as a medium sized business owner. I want to encourage all of you to vote for plans to bring all Blacksburg strand students back to the area as soon as feasible and to vote for a tax increase and bond issuance to construct new high schools in Blacksburg and Auburn.
I own a high tech company with over 30 employees, paying county and town of Blacksburg taxes. Due to the apparent lack of will to invest in education in this county, I am now forced to investigate moving my company long term to either Albemarle or Culpeper counties. I know personally of two other companies of similar size who have moved to Salem due to school quality. I know of other similar companies in and individuals looking to do the same. I simply cannot continue to grow in this area and recruit talented individuals if the answer to the question "how are your secondary schools" is "we have no high school and/or middle school".
This issue is not about the cost of raising taxes, but rather the cost of not investing in infrastructure. As it stands, the county will lose much more money in "bright flight" than it will in the cost of building these schools. With the same population, Albemarle County raises almost 3 times the tax revenue of Montgomery County. That fact is noticed by business investors like myself. I know the median income in Albemarle is more: about $64,000 for a family as compared to about $47,000 in Montgomery, but with a 27% lower median income, we raise 53% lower revenues for schools.
Historically, my largest hurdle to growth in Montgomery County has been transportation, though it is a lower concern than education and income. I cannot imagine how this area expects to prosper with the educational system taking such a tremendous hit with no will to fix it long term.
As a parent I have been appalled by both the process and attitude behind all of this discussion. I have made well known my disappointment that the school board and administration did not begin a planning process for BHS students in March or April before they had the engineering reports. I am still saddened that the decision was to disrupt two student bodies and not just one. I have come to be appalled by the conditions in Auburn and wonder why I had not known of them sooner. I am frankly stunned to find this county in the situation it is in and wonder how you can justify the serious gaps in safety (why was the BHS gym roof not inspected on a regular basis?) and planning (how could you not let revenue for the county grow when the economy was going so well to set aside money for a stormy time like we find ourselves in now?).
For school solutions: let me state that I am for repairing the current high school if it can be done swiftly to get all students back into their home strands. The progress made on OCMS should be lauded, but the distance to the school and the fact that students have tiny lockers for supplies, no lockers for gym and have to haul almost everything they have from building to building and going outside during winter weather is hardly a school to point to and say- here's our fantastic long term BMS. If it can be done before next school year, you should fix BHS. But I cannot understand justification for rebuilding the BHS gym. That expenditure would be a complete waste- there is a community center that is under used across the street that high schoolers already use for swimming activities.
As for higher taxes: you must first consider how many people you will lose without taking proper action. People, businesses, perhaps even educational institutions. Why not consider an exemption for increase for lower income households? I would gladly pay double a $.12/$100 increase on property tax if I knew it would go toward school construction. And not just for construction in Blacksburg, but for Auburn as well.
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