Isle of Wight County Supervisor Renee Rountree is calling for revisions to the county’s 10-year capital improvements plan, specifically an updated cost estimate and timeline for replacing Westside Elementary.

The current plan calls for $50 million split between fiscal years 2027 and 2028, though school officials had estimated a cost of $71 million as of 2023 when plans called for replacing the grades 4-6 Westside with a middle school that would house grades 5-7 and converting the grades 7-8 Smithfield Middle School that adjoins Smithfield High into one combined grades 8-12 school. That plan had been contingent on Carrollton Elementary having capacity to absorb Westside’s fourth-graders, which school officials say is no longer feasible. The county has yet to borrow money for Westside.

“The CIP in a lot of ways is a dream; it goes out 10 years,” Rountree said at the supervisors’ June 5 work session. “… I think we should do a better job of at least an idea of what something is going to cost in the out years.”

Currently the only capital projects with identified sources of funding are those budgeted for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which begins July 1. School-related capital projects funded for 2025-26 include engineering work for a new bus garage, five new school buses, a new band room for Smithfield High School, weapon detection systems for Isle of Wight’s two middle schools and Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant bleachers.

Isle of Wight previously replaced the 1961 Hardy Elementary with a new school by the same name in 2023 after agreeing two years earlier to a guaranteed maximum price of $36.8 million. Since then, construction costs have continued to rise. 

According to Virginia Department of Education data from the 2023-24 school year, the most recent with statewide cost data available, there were two middle schools under contract that year ranging from $67.2 million to $80.5 million.

Rountree contends the county is missing opportunities to pass at least part of the cost of building new schools to prospective developers by not having a definitive plan in place as to when they will be built and a realistic cost estimate.

State law changed in 2016 to prohibit localities from requesting or accepting “unreasonable” proffers, defining the term as any condition not “specifically and uniquely attributable” to a requested rezoning.

“If at least a placeholder isn’t there, we can’t even accept if they wanted to offer money to help our schools,” Rountree said.

Supervisor Rudolph Jefferson called for the supervisors to again meet jointly with the School Board. At a joint meeting last fall, one supervisor and one School Board member expressed doubts about whether Westside’s replacement should be built on land along Turner Drive adjacent to the existing Smithfield Middle School and Smithfield High School complex. 

“Let the School Board come to us and talk to us and ask us for what they foresee in the future. I think we’re stepping a little ahead of the ball game,” Jefferson said.

Debates over the legality of requesting or accepting cash proffers from developers for school enrollment impacts has come up at recent Smithfield Town Council meetings.

The Promontory, a proposed mixed-use development that would add 239 homes and five commercial lots along Benns Church Boulevard at the town-county border, has proffered that if the development causes the existing Smithfield Middle School to exceed capacity, it would pay up to $750,228, or $62,519 per seat. Town Councilman Darren Cutler cast the dissenting vote on the town’s 6-1 approval of revised proffers for the 104-home Cottages at Battery development behind the town’s Royal Farms convenience store, citing a lack of specificity in that development’s school-related proffers versus The Promontory’s. Town Attorney Bill Riddick, however, said Isle of Wight County Schools had not responded in writing to the town’s request for comments on the Cottages’ impact and therefore the town had no data to support a direct impact on the school system.