Before it goes further with finding a solution to the loss of Page Middle School, the Gloucester School Board wants to know it still has the $18 million county supervisors promised for the effort in November.

The board voted Feb. 29 to request the confirmation following its public hearing on fiscal year 2013 budget proposals.

The county board agreed to give the school division $18 million in local funds to go with $8 million in insurance proceeds the school division received after Page was devastated by a tornado last spring. The county allocation was about $5 million short of what school division superintendent Ben Kiser had hoped to receive to build a Page replacement.

The county board membership has since changed, with four new supervisors joining the seven-member board in January. The school board’s considerations have also changed from the sole vision for a new school to an alternative arrangement that would spare the closing of a historically significant elementary ...