The 2026-2028 Virginia state budget gives every Virginia county and city the option to ask voters to approve an additional local sales and use tax of up to 1% to help pay for public school capital projects. In other words, the Virginia legislature handed local communities another tool for the toolbox to pay for school capital projects — now it’s up to us to decide whether to use it.
There are important guardrails. Every dollar raised must be used exclusively for public school capital improvements, such as renovations and major repairs, and can’t be used for anything else! Even better, groceries, prescription medicines, and essential personal hygiene products are specifically exempt from the tax.
The original building that houses Middlesex High School has proudly served our community since 1949. That’s more than 75 years of educating generations of students — and while that’s something to celebrate, the building itself is definitely showing its age. It now needs significant renovations to provide students with the safe, modern learning environment they deserve and to address decades of deferred maintenance.
