
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 22, 1995                   TAG: 9507240042
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                  LENGTH: Medium

SCHOOL BONDS PROPOSED

Montgomery County would seek state school bonds to build a new Riner elementary school and would put three other school-building projects before voters in May 1996, according to a new proposal.

A joint committee on school sites will propose Monday that the Board of Supervisors pursue Virginia Public School Authority bonds in the spring to take care of the county's top priority: relieving Riner-area overcrowding with a new school. Such bonds would not require voter approval.

But the committee will recommend the Board of Supervisors seek voters' approval for general obligation bonds to finance three more school projects: new middle schools in Blacksburg and Christiansburg and a new high school in Shawsville.

Monday's recommendations - to be presented at the 7 p.m. courthouse meeting - will be the first specific financial proposals to grow out of more than a year of study by the county School Board of ways to ease overcrowding and accommodate expected population growth.

A bond referendum has been discussed, but is politically sensitive because it probably would involve asking voters to accept tax increases to pay to borrow millions of dollars.

But by separating the four-school program into two sections, the Board of Supervisors and School Board may lessen the amount of borrowing.

Under the proposed strategy, Riner would get the first new school. Work possibly could begin in this budget year, which ends June 30. Riner-area schools have the most critical overcrowding, according to the committee's report.

To get work started soon, the Board of Supervisors will be asked to advance $1.3 million to buy land and pay for architectural and engineering services. That money would be reimbursed after state school bonds are sold in spring 1996. Meanwhile, the county would seek one-year, renewable options to buy land for the remaining two or three school sites, depending on whether the current Blacksburg Middle School is expanded or replaced.

Deferring a bond sale until after the Riner project is launched means the county may benefit from a subsidy from the state's Literary Fund, a school-building money source that's been ineffective in recent years but is expected to be revitalized soon.

The Site Selection Committee that will make the proposals includes Board of Supervisors members Jim Moore and Henry Jablonski, and School Board Chairman Roy Vickers and member Barry Worth.

Memo: ***CORRECTION***

by CNB