School board to Supervisors: Ok to move forward with sales tax vote

By MIKE WILLIAMS

Patriot Publishing

The Pulaski County School Board voted unanimously Tuesday in support of letting citizens decide through a referendum whether the county should adopt a 1 percent increase in sales tax to pay for school construction costs.

The recently passed state budget for the 2026-28 biennium allows cities and counties in Virginia to hold referendums to raise local sales taxes by 1 percent. The additional revenue from the tax increase must be spent on school construction and related debt.

The school board voted Tuesday to notify the supervisors that it supports the county moving forward on the referendum.

The supervisors will likely take up the issue at their July 27 meeting. If they approve a referendum on the sales tax increase, the vote will be held on November 3.

Ingles District representative Gina Paine, speaking during Tuesday’s school board meeting, said the school system faces millions in needed maintenance and construction needs.

“I know when we were first seated as a board, one of the first things we asked for was a list of everything our schools need – right down to a paint job somewhere,” Paine said.

“If I’m not mistaken, taken in its totality, we were looking at somewhere in the range of $30 million to accomplish all of it – and that’s in 2024 prices.

“If a 1 percent sales tax generates $5 million a year, we could certainly chip away at the capital needs of the school system,” she said.

Paine added she is never a strong advocate for saying “tax me more.”

“But I do believe in the process of asking the voters to vote on this, and my position as one member of this board would be to let the board of supervisors proceed with doing that,” she said.

Massie District representative Josh Taylor quickly followed, saying he “concurs totally with Mrs. Payne.”

Discussion on the sales tax was originally an information item on the school board meeting’s agenda, but board members voted to move the issue to the action portion of the agenda so board members could move the question on to the Board of Supervisors right away.

School Superintendent Rob Graham said everything must be decided on the referendum issue by August 14 to get the question on the Nov. 3 ballot so voters can decide.