Stafford leaders approve spending plan, includes $120 million high school, upgraded courthouse

STAFFORD– The Stafford County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of the 2020-2029 Capital Improvement Plan during their June 18 meeting. This year’s CIP includes upgrades to county schools, the county’s courthouse, and transportation.

The Board also included a public safety joint training center in it’s proposed CIP. The public safety joint training center being placed above transportation didn’t sit well with some supervisors. “Our roads are much more important than the planned public safety training center,” Rock Hill District Supervisor Wendy Maurer said.

The planned sixth county high school was listed as the most expensive school construction project at more than $120 million. It would open during the 2028-2029 school year if all goes to plank.

Colgan High School in neighboring Prince William County opened in 2016 at a cost of nearly $112 million and became the second most expensive high school ever to be built in Virginia. In addition to the school building, Colgan was built with a full indoor aquatics center.

There are no plans for an aquatics center at the sixth Stafford County high school.

The School Board and the Board of Supervisors axed a new elementary school that was slated to open sometime in the late  2020s to early 2030s. Supervisors provided no clear reason on why the new elementary school wasn’t included in the CIP.

“This CIP was not an in-depth analysis by the School Board,” George Washington Supervisor Tom Coen said.

Hartwood Elementary School and Drew Middle School are the biggest school renovation projects listed on the CIP. Hartwood has been talked about by both the School Board and Board of Supervisors in recent years. Both renovations would cost the county $25 million.

Hartwood, opened in 1963, is scheduled to receive a renovation starting in 2025 and be completed in 2029 while Drew would receive a renovation that would start in 2028 and be completed in 2032.

Supervisors were frustrated that the School Board failed to participate in this years joint CIP. The School Board failed to include renovations to some school’s HVAC units. A total of 10 out of the 30 schools in the county don’t have air conditioning in the kitchen.

“School starts in August this year and it’s one of the hottest times of the year,” Griffis-Widewater District Supervisor Jack Cavalier said. “It’s an awfully hot time to be cooking food back there. This is a shining example of why we’re cutting the School Board out of the CIP process next year.”

The Board of Supervisors also included a $40 million upgrade to the county’s courthouse after supervisors pushed courthouse upgrades on the backburner in previous CIP plans. That figure is down from the original proposal of $70 million courthouse that would have replaced the county’s iconic courthouse still in use today at the corner of Route 1 and Courthouse Road.

As for a plan to make that corner of the county more urban, the initial start to Downtown Stafford is included in this years CIP but only includes a $1 million parking lot located across the street from the courthouse and public safety center.

Supervisors also plan to upgrade transportation through a bond referendum that would need to be approved by voters in November. The bond in the referendum would cost the county between $50 million and $70 million. In total, the estimated cost of upgrading many of Stafford’s rural roads to state standards sits at $180 million.

Road improvements would be completed by 2030 if the referendum is passed by voters this November.

The vote on the CIP passed with a vote of 6-1. Garrisonville Supervisor Mark Dudenhefer was the only dissenter in the vote.