BLUEFIELD, Va. — The Tazewell County Board of Supervisors have agreed to budget $5.8 million in sequestered school funds for various school improvement projects, but have delayed action on lighting for the existing practice field at Graham High School.
According to Tazewell County Administrator Eric Young, the Board of Supervisors control the school funding purse, while the School Board controls the schools.
Those projects that the supervisors have agreed to budget with the $5.8 million in sequestered funds include a $2.54 million project for repairs to Tazewell High School including $1.1 million for structural support walls repairs, $440,000 for restroom renovations and $1 million to replace the heating system. The supervisors also budgeted $440,000 each for restroom renovations for Graham High School and Richlands High School. Another $400,000 was budgeted by the supervisors for paving parking areas along with $1 million for a new heating system at Tazewell High School. The board’s budget also includes a $1 million grant to address flooding issues at the Richlands Elementary campus. An additional $220,000 was set aside for security doors in all county schools.
Lights for the planned football field at Graham High School, which is being developed at the site of the existing practice field, were not budgeted by the supervisors during their recessed meeting on June 27. Those lights are needed in order for home football games to played on the practice field at night.
Chuck Presley, the Eastern District supervisor, said he is still working on trying to get the lighting.
“I’m committed on getting the lights at Graham High School for the community,” Presley said. “I want to get it but I have to work with my fellow board members. Once we get the projects going on the bathrooms at the schools, I believe my board will go with the lights at Graham High School.”
There has been controversy in the two Bluefields in recent weeks after the Tazewell County School Board voted against renewing a contract with the city of Bluefield for the use of Mitchell Stadium. The school board instead announced that three of five home football games for Graham High School will instead be played on the practice field at GHS, even though that facility currently lacks permanent infrastructure, including lighting, bleachers, a score board, a press box and other additions. Another two home games for Graham will played at Tazewell High School and Richlands High School at night since there isn’t lighting at the practice field in Bluefield, Va..
The $5.8 million in sequestered funds comes from several years of grant reimbursements the school system received from 2020 to 2023, but failed to report in their financial statements to auditors or their budget disclosures to the supervisors, according to a statement released by the county Board of Supervisors to the media. When the 2024 annual audit was completed, it revealed more than $7 million in funds, including the $5.8 million sequestered by the county, the statement said.
The school system has denied that it failed to report the funding to the county. Several messages left Monday by the Daily Telegraph with School Superintendent Dr. Chris Stacy seeking comment on the county’s statement — which was also placed on the official Facebook page of the Board of Supervisors — were not immediately returned.
After the funds were frozen in June of 2024 by the supervisors, the school board submitted a proposed budget for the funds that included $650,000 in renovations to the school board office, according to the county statement. The supervisor rejected that request in August 2024. Since then, the two boards spent a year negotiating a new priority list.
The revised priority list submitted by Stacy to the supervisors included funding for restroom renovations at all high schools and the wall repairs at Tazewell High School. The revised list also included a $500,000 request for lighting at the Graham High School practice field.
“It is sad we have to operate this way with the school system,” Kyle Cruey, vice chair of the supervisors, the board’s Northern District representative and a member of the budget committee, said in a statement. “But they tried to conceal these funds from the public and use them for an unbudgeted project. We had to learn about it from our auditors. The grant reimbursement funds the School Board received from the state were meant to come back to the county and be budgeted and appropriated by the Board of Supervisors after a public hearing as required by law. That did not happen and it appears the school system had already spent $1.7 million of it on a practice field at Graham High School. So, we are going to continue to control this money tightly until we can establish some level of trust with them.”
“This board is committed to solving big problems this county faces,” Andy Hrovatic, the Western District supervisor and also a member of the board’s budget committee, added. “Earlier this year we moved to remedy our fire and EMS protection needs. Now we are going to start fixing serious problems in our school facilities.”
Young said the school board has solicited bids for designing the repairs to the support wall at Tazewell High School and for renovations of the restrooms at all three high schools. The supervisors will meet again August 5 and can transfer funding for those projects to the school system at that time, according to Young.
“Fortunately, they now have agreed to use these funds to fix major problems in our school buildings first,” Young said. “I know the School Board wants their Graham Stadium lights right away. But the supervisors do not want to build a stadium with this money and then have to borrow millions to keep our school buildings habitable.”
Much of the debate in recent days has been centered around where the G-Men will play their home games, as the existing practice field is not yet a full-fledged football stadium. At the moment, there won’t be lighting and only temporary accommodations will be in place including portable restrooms, a press box area on the roof of Graham High School, and makeshift concessions. Bleachers are being acquired for smaller crowds, the school system said in a statement last week adding that spectators would be encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets.
While the school board originally talked about using the bleachers at the former Pocahontas High School — a facility which closed more than 20 years ago — at Graham, school board public relations director Lindsey Mullins Woodard said last week that the board was now looking at renting bleachers for the upcoming Graham season. Had the old bleachers from Pocahontas High School been used at Graham High School, they would have had to pass a town inspection, according to earlier reports from Bluefield, Va. Town Manager Andrew Hanson.
The school system rejected two contract offers presented by the city of Bluefield for the use of Mitchell Stadium, a three-year and five-year contract, both of which included a 2 percent increase to help finance the upkeep of the historic stadium, which was voted in November 2019 as USA Today’s Best High School Football Stadium in the nation.
Bluefield City Manager Cecil Marson said he was aware of the ongoing Virginia-side discussions between the two Virginia-side governing boards — pointing to the statement posted by the supervisors on their Facebook page — but added Monday that he had no further comment on the matter at this time.
The home schedule released by the school system for Graham High School includes an opening game on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 7 p.m. at Tazewell High School and a second home game set for Friday, Ot. 31, at 7 p.m. at Richlands High School.
Contact Charles Owens at [email protected]