Months after the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors approved its budget for FY22, Virginia’s attorney general has released an official opinion regarding the use of Gloucester’s 1 percent sales tax, declaring that the revenues are to be used “to fund capital projects for ‘new construction or major renovation’ of Gloucester’s public schools, not debt mitigation.”

The Dec. 21 opinion from Mark Herring runs contrary to former County Administrator Brent Fedors’s interpretation of the enabling legislation. In this year’s budget process, Fedors allowed for part of the sales tax revenue to be used for existing school debt mitigation from past eligible projects.

He said the term “new” wasn’t defined in the legislation and that the past construction was new when it occurred.

According to a statement from Gloucester County, the board “was made aware of the [Attorney General’s] letter and will be discussing it during a closed session at its Jan. 4 meeting.”

The 1 percent sales tax...