“Something has to give,” Mathews County’s superintendent of schools Nancy Welch said following the conclusion of Friday morning’s meeting of the school board’s capital improvements study committee.

Either county residents, she said, will vote to approve a meals tax resolution in November to come up with the money for capital improvements, or the board of supervisors will be forced to increase the real estate tax to pay for those needs.

A third option—doing nothing while the school division’s buildings and grounds continue to fall into a state of disrepair—is becoming less viable with each passing day.

Welch, maintenance supervisor Donnie Hall, community representative Dennis Whitcomb, school board members John Priest and Jeanice Sadler, along with the division’s school principals, met in the school board conference room to go over the work that has been done and a growing laundry list of items that need attention.

The committee&...