Montgomery County school needs, legislative priorities to be addressed

Montgomery County supervisors will take action to put various school system funding into the new county budget when they meet Monday. The county board will also review its priorities for legislation in the 2026 General Assembly and will learn about absentee voting sites for the November election.

The board will convene at 7 p.m. in the second-floor board chambers at the county government center, 755 Roanoke St., Christiansburg.

School funds

Supervisors will vote on several amendments to the fiscal 2025-26 budget that reflect unspent carryover funding appropriated for county schools in the previous fiscal year. The county board is required to pass resolutions to reappropriate the dollars because the new budget will change by more than one percent.

The resolutions will cover:

• More than $41.4 million for ongoing school capital projects and/or open purchase orders on capital projects, including: Christiansburg High School upgrades, nearly $36.5 million; Auburn Elementary School upgrades, more than $1.16 million; eastern Montgomery track renovations, more than $1 million; fuel tanks, more than $978,000; window replacement at various facilities, more than $525,000; operations center renovations and upgrades, more than $486,000; Kipps Elementary School upgrades, more than $371,000; Christiansburg Primary School improvements, more than $130,500; Harding Avenue Elementary School upgrades, nearly $68,700; and Belview Elementary School renovations, $30,000.
• Undesignated general fund dollars requested by the school board, including: Instruction, more than $1.21 million; employer contributions to the school health insurance fund, nearly $818,900; operations and maintenance, more than $372,000; pupil transportation, $115,000; attendance and health, more than $95,000; and non-instructional, $1,000.

General Assembly

The board will also discuss its legislative priorities for next year’s General Assembly.

They include: 

• Enhanced Virginia Retirement System benefits for animal control officers.
• Allowing localities to enhance retirement benefits for full-time salaried 911 dispatchers.
• Legislation to re-classify broadband service as a public utility under state law, recognizing it as an essential service.
• Full state funding of school Standards of Quality and basing teacher pay raises on actual positions, not just SOQ requirements.
• State funding to make school facilities more secure.
• Continued state funding to support school resource officer positions.
• Opposing legislation that would prohibit a locality from limiting the size of solar power installations or prohibiting solar panels that do not comply with local ordinances.
• Opposing legislation that would allow an energy facility to gain state approval without local government approval.
• Ending unfunded state mandates and reductions in state funding for public schools, public safety and constitutional officers.
• Opposing bills that would eliminate, restrict or weaken local governments’ ability to tax existing revenue sources.
• Supporting legislation that would give counties, cities and towns equal taxing authority.
• Supporting efforts to distribute a share of state income tax revenue to localities or to let localities adopt new revenue generation methods to pay for local services.
• Supporting more state funding for the Department of Environmental Quality.
• Supporting bills that preserve land use authority at the local level.
• Opposing the elimination of qualified immunity from civil suits for law enforcement and other government officials, unless the plaintiff shows that an official clearly violated statutory or constitutional rights.
• State funding for the creation of a recreational trail network that includes trail connections in the New River and Roanoke valleys.
• More funding for Interstate 81 upgrades.
• Extension of Amtrak passenger rail service from the Roanoke Valley to Christiansburg.
• Fixing declining state revenue for county secondary road construction and maintenance. 
• Making changes to simplify and improve the state’s Smart Scale process for allocating transportation project dollars.
• Opposing legislation that would increase truck sizes or weights on Virginia roads beyond current federal standards.

Voting

The county registrar’s office will provide information on voter satellite offices for in-person absentee voting during the November election, including: The Blacksburg Community Center multi-purpose room, 725 Patrick Henry Drive; the Shawsville Middle School cafeteria, 4179 Oldtown Road; and the Auburn High School cafeteria, 1650 Auburn Drive, Riner.

You can find the meeting documents here.

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