06/28/2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2025
TAZEWELL COUNTY TAKES CONTROL OF $5.8M IN SCHOOL FUNDS
TO LAUNCH LONG-OVERDUE FACILITY UPGRADES
Tazewell, Virginia – Tazewell County Public Schools are going to get long overdue tender love and care, thanks to state reimbursements discovered in the 2023 supplemental audit of the school system. At their recessed June meeting, the Board of Supervisors voted to budget those $5.8m in sequestered funds for renovations and improvements. The projects include $2.54m for repairs to THS including $1.1m for structural support walls repairs, $440,000for restroom renovations and $1m to replace the heating system. The board also budgeted $440,000 each for GHS and RHS for restroom renovations. The board’s budget includes another $400,000 for paving parking areas and another $1m for a new heating system for Tazewell Middle School. The board’s budget also includes $1m grant from DCR to remedy flooding issues on the Richlands’ campus. The budget sets aside another $220,000 for security doors in all schools. Earlier this month the board approved a contract with an engineering firm, SEH, to study potential sites for a new K-8 cchool building in the Western school district, to be funded by a $13m state grant awarded in 2024.
Supervisor Hrovatic, a member of the Budget Committee, said, “This Board is committed to solving big problems this county faces. Earlier this year we moved to remedy our Fire and EMS protection needs. Now we are going to start fixing serious problems in our school facilities.”
The funding comes from several years of grant reimbursements the school system received from 2020 to 2023, but failed to report in their financial statements to auditors or their budget disclosures to the Supervisors. When the 2024 annual audit by Robinson Farmer and Cox, CPAs, revealed more the than $7m in funds not disclosed by the School Board, the Supervisors sequestered $5.8m of the funds.
After the funds were frozen in June of 2024, the School Board submitted a proposed budget for the funds that included $650,000.00 in renovations to School Board offices. The Supervisors rejected that request in August 2024. Since then, the two Boards spent a year negotiating an agreed new, better priority list.
Earlier this month Superintendent Stacy presented the new list, now including funding for restroom renovations at all high schools and the wall repairs at THS. The list continued to seek nearly $500,000 in funding for “security lights” for the GHS practice field. At this week’s meeting, the Supervisors deferred that request, until the other projects are under contract and the actual costs for those are known. The board continued sequestration of the funds and will permit the School Board to draw the funds only to pay for contracts for the approved improvements.
Supervisor Cruey, Vice Chair and member of the Budget Committee, said, “It is sad we have to operate this way with the school system. But they tried to conceal these funds from the public and use them for an unbudgeted project. We had to learn about it from our auditors. The grant reimbursement funds the School Board received from the state were meant to come back to the county and be budgeted and appropriated by the Board of Supervisors after a public hearing as required by law. That did not happen and it appears the school system had already spent $1.7m of it on a practice field at Graham High School. So, we are going to continue to control this money tightly until we can establish some level of trust with them.”
County Administrator Eric Young said, “The Supervisors control the purse, while the School Board controls the schools. So, that is always an interesting dance. Fortunately, they now have agreed to use these funds to fix major problems in our school buildings first. I know the School Board wants their Graham Stadium lights right away. But the Supervisors do not want to build a stadium with this money and then have to borrow millions to keep our school buildings habitable.” The School Board has solicited bids for designing the repairs in the support wall at THS and for renovations of the restrooms at all three high schools. The Supervisors will meet again August 5th and can transfer funding for those projects to the school system at that time.
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