The Gloucester School Board voted 6-1 Tuesday to increase its 2022 capital improvements budget request by $33 million in order to fund a full renovation of Gloucester High School.

A large group of community members came together in 2017 to help designers construct a master plan for needed renovations at GHS. The resulting plans were available for public review by December of that year and a full-scale renovation was approved by the school board in 2018.

The renovation cost at the time was estimated at $71 million. After looking at the real estate tax impact the project would have in April 2019, it was estimated by county administrator that only $36.6 million in improvements at GHS would increase the real estate tax rate by eight cents.

County supervisors decided to limit funding for GHS improvements to $36.6 million, which would cover basic infrastructure improvements, but was not what the school board wanted to move forward with. The figure for the infrastructure improvement...