Under Article VII, Section 10, of the Constitution of Virginia, local governments must obtain voter approval through referendums to issue general obligation bonds. On this November’s ballot, voters in Loudoun County, Virginia, will be asked to consider three such referendums.
Bonds are debt. The issuing government sells them to investors and receives an immediate influx of cash, but, like a bank loan, the funds must be repaid over time—at the taxpayers’ expense—with interest. Generally, I believe governments should only incur public debt when:
- a project is necessary for the public good,
- its benefits will far outlast the repayment period, and
- it cannot be reasonably funded through other means.
School Bonds
Voters in Loudoun County, Virginia, will be asked in a referendum to authorize the county to issue up to $75,620,000 in general obligation bonds for school projects. These would be used for “Capital Renewal and Alteration” and the “Special Program/Academy Expansion.” They could also be used to fund “other public school facilities as requested by the Loudoun County School Board.”
In the 2026 fiscal year, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) plans to spend a whopping $2,510,102,704.00 . . . over $2.5 billion. They get about 60% of Loudoun County’s entire budget, which is more than every other county service combined. Enrollment is projected to increase by only 0.46% to 81,629 students, and the current annual inflation rate is about 2.9%, so the maximum acceptable change in school spending would be 3.4%. It really should be flat or negative because spending has far outpaced enrollment and inflation for decades.
To my surprise, LCPS’s overall budget is down by about 9% this year. That’s a good start. But upon closer inspection I learned that the cuts are coming from only two funds: grants and capital improvement. The main operating fund and the nutrition fund, which should both pace closely to enrollment and inflation, are up by 7.5% and 9.4% respectively—more than twice as much as what the enrollment and inflation rates justify. The self-insurance fund is up by even more—15.3%—due, they claim, to large increases in medical insurance costs. I wonder if the costs of all the lawsuits and investigations also come from the insurance fund; that might explain it. Anyway, one-time cuts in these two funds are being used to mask continuing unjustifiable increases in others.
LCPS’s official annual cost-per-pupil this year is $23,825. Public school systems obscure their true costs by calculating these figures against the operating and grant funds without considering other funds including nutrition programs, leases, insurance, capital improvement, and asset preservation. The true annual cost-per-pupil—the total school budget divided by enrollment—is $30,750. That is 29% higher than advertised.
This entire referendum could be funded with a one-time allocation of only 3% of the LCPS budget. If they had capped the increase in the operating budget below 3.4%—the maximum justified by enrollment and inflation—they could have covered all these projects “out-of-pocket” with millions left over for silly little things like teacher salaries and classroom supplies.
Meanwhile, our schools are still dealing with the insane controversies of the last several years . . . and creating new ones. Now they’re making headlines for refusing to comply with state and federal “Title IX” sex discrimination guidelines while, at the same time, perverting the same law to punish victims of sexual harassment. We replaced the entire school board and our superintendent two years ago and they still haven’t gotten the message. The madness continues; the lunatics still run the asylum.
Vote NO on the school bond referendum. Keep voting no on every school bond referendum they put before us until our school leaders start demonstrating some fiscal responsibility, some competence, or at least some shame.
Parks & Safety Bonds
Voters in Loudoun County, Virginia, will be asked in a referendum to authorize the county to issue up to $32,631,000 in general obligation bonds for library, parks, recreation, and public safety projects. These would be used to renovate the Cascades Library and Senior Center Complex, develop the Linear Parks and Trails System, build the Sterling Neighborhood Park, and build an addition to the Purcellville Fire and Rescue Station. They could also be used to fund “other public parks, recreational and community center[,] and public safety projects approved in the County’s Capital Improvement Program.”
I contacted Loudoun Supervisor Matt Letourneau (R-Dulles) to ask why unrelated projects have been combined into this single “omnibus” request; he explained that “[county] staff makes a recommendation on packaging bond items together in part to avoid having too many questions” on the ballot, and that “it would be very unwieldy to separate out every single project.”
Letourneau also made a case in favor of a “yes” vote for this and the other referendums because each project has already been approved and budgeted. As he put it, “the county is going to build those projects, one way or another,” and a failed referendum would only force the county to use other financing methods that are “often less advantageous to the taxpayer.” I suggested that it wouldn’t make sense for me to take out a loan for a $40,000 car if I had $1 million in my checking account, to which he explained that construction firms are paid large sums at intervals during projects and, expanding on my analogy, the county isn’t buying one car, it’s buying fifty of them all at once. Debt financing allows the county to avoid cash flow problems and “smooth out those payments and manage annual outlay.”
He makes a good case; he almost convinced me. I appreciate Letourneau’s willingness to have the conversation. He invested real time and effort in his thoughtful replies to my messages. It is only fair that I include the above summary of his position for you to consider. But we are a wealthy county with reliable, steady sources of tax revenue, and a single line-item in our budget—the disbursement to the schools—could (and should) be reduced by 10% or more to free-up plenty of money for these projects and many more . . . no debt required.
Vote NO on the parks and safety bond referendum.
Transportation Bonds
Voters in Loudoun County, Virginia, will be asked in a referendum to authorize the county to issue up to $30,126,000 in general obligation bonds for transportation projects. These funds would be used to widen Braddock Road from Paul VI High School to Loudoun County Parkway, widen Croson Lane from Claiborne Parkway to Old Ryan Road, and improve intersections on Farmwell Road. They could also be used to fund “other public road and transportation projects approved in the County’s Capital Improvement Program.”
Of Loudoun County’s $2.7 billion budget for the 2026 fiscal year, the allocation for transportation is $34.6 million—a minuscule 1.3%. If the county increased its transportation allocation to cover the cost of this referendum out-of-pocket, it would still be only 2.4% of the total.
We have already discussed the absurd amount of money our schools are burning each year. If they had kept their operating and nutrition budgets flat—a small one-time reversal after decades of unrelenting increases—that alone could have funded all three of this year’s bond referendums outright, and still left another $3.6 million on the table for a ‘rainy-day’ fund, other important projects, or a tax refund.
Between federal, state, and local governments, there is plenty of transportation money. The people of Loudoun County obediently pay our car tax, gas tax, registration fees, safety and emissions inspection fees, drivers’ license fees, tolls, and, yes, traffic tickets . . . on top of the “general” taxes on income, sales, tariffs, and so-on, which are also partially allotted to transportation. For practical reasons, very large road construction projects are best funded through general obligation bonds. These relatively small, routine projects don’t need to be.
Vote NO on the transportation projects bond referendum.