ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9604010047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
note: above
A $65 million school bond issue?
Yes, that's what Roanoke County voters approved in 1969, based on today's values.
The bond issue was $15.8 million, a huge amount for the 1960s. The bonds financed four new schools and additions to 12 schools. The new schools were Hidden Valley Junior High and three elementary schools: Glen Cove, Penn Forest and W.E. Cundiff.
The same work would cost about four times that much today, based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index in the past quarter of a century.
County voters approved the school bonds not just once, but twice.
Because of an error in the legal advertisement for the bond issue, voters had to approve it in a second referendum a few weeks after the initial approval.
It was a period of rapid growth in the county. School enrollment was increasing by 600 to 800 students a year. The county was building a new school almost every year.
Windsor Hills Supervisor Lee Eddy, who was on the Board of Supervisors when the 1969 referendum was approved, recalls there was strong support for the bonds because of the student boom.
Unlike the current referendum, there were no complaints in 1969 that one area was being favored. Eddy said it's more difficult for some county voters to see the need for school improvements now because the enrollment has been fairly flat in recent years.
"We need more classrooms, partly because of new special education requirements and other reasons. But it's harder to explain that to voters," he said.
Enrollment in Southwest County, the area served by Cave Spring High, has increased by 5.6 percent in the past decade while it has decreased slightly in North, East and West County.
Eddy thinks school improvements are needed in Southwest County, but he said last week he's on the fence on whether to vote for the referendum because he has reservations about the plan for a new high school.
The county has constructed only one new school during the past 24 years - William Byrd Middle School in the late 1980s - but it has built additions and made renovations at several schools.
Some county school improvements have been financed without a referendum by using state Literary Fund loans and money borrowed through the Virginia Public School Authority.
Other funds for school projects have been included in county bond issues that also have included money for non-school projects.
The county has spent nearly $39 million on school improvements in the past decade. The money has financed school improvements in all areas. It has spent $13 million in East County; $9 million in North County; $8.5 million in Southwest County; and $7.7 million in West County.
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