CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — As the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors get set to consider the proposed budget at next week’s meeting, Scottsville Supervisor Mike Pruitt said the funding request for a fourth high school is not something the board is likely to green-light.

While Rivanna Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley said the path forward could come from bonds and the upcoming one-cent sales tax referendum, Pruitt is still unconvinced it would be enough.

“It’s a really important and urgent request,” Pruitt said during an appearance on WINA Morning News. “I think I, and some of my peers on the board, agree with the wisdom of it, but it’s also something that, quite frankly, we literally do not have the capacity to afford.”

County Executive Jeff Richardson is scheduled to present the proposed county budget Wednesday and will include what Pruitt called a very public and very challenging request from the county’s school division for additional funding toward the construction of a fourth high school.

That request came at a work session between the Board of Supervisors and School Board in December, in which Pruitt was the first and arguably most adamant Supervisor to speak against the proposal.

Pruitt said the project is a perfect example of a capital project that are so expensive they require bonds to fund. He added those bonds require planning in advance and given they must be paid back on a schedule, only 10% of the county’s budget at most can be allocated to paying back debts, a limit the county is already close to due to other school projects.

But LaPisto-Kirtley sounded more optimistic over the idea of getting additional bonds for the high schools, telling Cville Right Now Live that Albemarle can borrow at a much lower interest rate than other counties due to its status as a Triple-A County.

“That’s very, very rare,” she said. “There’s only like 64 in the whole country.”

In addition, the potential referendum on adding a one-cent tax for school construction, which Pruitt said he expects to pass on the statewide level with support from Gov. Abigail Spanberger as well as locally with Albemarle voters, could provide some support. LaPisto-Kirtley said the Board is relying on the referendum passing in Albemarle and, if it does, it would allocate $26 million a year all of the school division’s construction projects, including current renovations and Center Two projects.

“Would that help? Absolutely,” she said.

But Pruitt said even with the sales tax, it would make up a little more than half of the needed funding.

“There would still be a lot of, I would say challenges and sacrifices that would need to be made if we were to fund it at the aggressive level that the school division has asked for,” he said. “It is an essential component, but it’s not enough.”

Outside of the issue of school construction, Pruitt has been a vocal advocate toward increasing funding for the housing trust fund. He said funding for the trust is “getting there,” with last year being the highest funded year so far with just over $6 million. But every year there are plenty of requests for projects that use up that funding.

“It’s kind of like a grant-making or even like a small lender that specifically help puts out money to build more inventory of affordable housing,” Pruitt said of the grant. “It helps make so that developers are able to build affordable housing that folks can then live in.”

Pruitt is aiming for $10 million for the fund in the next fiscal year, a figure he says the community is also asking for and he believes is “within sight.” But Pruitt said there are other services the board must consider in the budget. Particularly public safety with funding for both police and fire & rescue, the latter of which is suffering from volunteer rates falling. It’s a trend that is particularly worrisome in rural areas that rely on volunteer firefighters and could mean the county will have to hire more professionals to make up the difference.

“I think the story that you’ve seen over the past several years and that you’re going to continue to see over the next coming few years is an increasing amount of public funds that have to be spent on fire & rescue to kind of stymie the continued loss of volunteers that we see across the county,” Pruitt said.

The budget for the 2026-27 Fiscal Year will be presented at the Board of Supervisors’ Wednesday meeting, which will take place at noon in Room 241 of the Albemarle County Office Building.