Mathews supervisors painted a grim picture during last Thursday’s board meeting of the physical condition of the county’s schools and the money it could take to fix the problems. They also heard from the county’s financial advisers, Davenport and Company, about the county’s financial position and what that might mean for addressing the infrastructure issues.

In discussions that peppered various parts of the agenda, supervisors mentioned a broad range of capital projects that need to be addressed.

“We’ve got to get stuff fixed,” said supervisor Dave Jones. “It’s a lack of maintenance.”

Chairman Tim Doss agreed, saying, “We have a huge hill for us to climb.” He said that preventive maintenance had been neglected for years, impacting heat, water, roofs, and other structural components.

“We’re talking about decades of things that haven’t been fixed,” he said, “and we’re looking at fixing them at much higher prices than years ago … We could put a Band-Aid on it, but that’s just not the right thing.”

On top of all the deferred maintenance, he said, “We need a fire department.”

Supervisor Tom Bowen said that the schools were closed on Thursday because of issues with a valve in the water system. He said just replacing seals would cost $500,000, while replacing the pipes themselves would cost $1.5 million. A plan to just repair all of the things that need repairing would cost $7.7 million, he said.

“These are just basic repairs that should’ve been done years ago,” he said.

Bowen pointed out that seven out of 10 HVAC systems in county buildings are years past their useful life. The boiler at the elementary school is supposed to be inspected annually, he said, and it was last inspected in 2009.

“It’s like an onion,” he said. “Every time you peel it back, you find something else.”

The $7.7 million doesn’t even include such needs as municipal water, a parking lot for Haven Beach, repairs to the tennis courts at the county park, and a regulation track field, he said.

Doss emphasized that the current board “was not involved with this neglect. We’re talking decades of neglect.”

“We are looking at millions,” he said, “as well as a fire department we have to have. These are repairs that are possibly safety issues, and that will just get us to the point of whether we build or repair the schools … We will probably have debt service we’ve never had before.”

Jones said he was on-site at the boiler room on Wednesday, and that there are two boilers, one for everyday use and another as backup. When it was installed, he said, the plumbers used seals and couplings instead of welded joints and the seals failed.

“It would be hard for a contractor to go back and retrofit it,” he said. “The fact that it was not inspected for 16 years is very concerning to me.”

Jones said that was one reason the county would like to take over maintenance of the school buildings. He said that repairing the boiler would require taking it offline and having no heat. Moving forward, he said, the building needs an updated system that’s energy efficient.

Davenport presentation

Kyle Laux, senior vice president and municipal advisor with Davenport and Company, gave the board a status update and suggestions for planning ahead.

Laux pointed out that, after growing the county’s fund balance for several years with investments on the capital side, the county reduced it in 2024. He said that the board last year established a policy of maintaining a minimum of 15 percent of the county’s government expenditure in the unassigned fund balance. This is important for emergencies, problems, and even opportunities the county might run into, he said, adding that the county earns cash on its fund balance. He showed the board where the fund balance was once as high as 26 percent, and said there had been “erosion in the amount,” with “no wiggle room left.”

While the county is maintaining a 16.8 percent fund balance, he said, the median fund balance held by peer counties is higher—an average of 23 percent, with Middlesex County maintaining the highest fund balance in the peer group, at 39.2 percent, and York County, an outlier, maintaining the low of just 8.3 percent. Besides York, only Westmoreland and Accomack counties maintain lower fund balances than Mathews, according to the chart.

Mathews also has a lower real estate rate than most of its peers, said Laux. At 56 cents per $100 of assessed value, the rate is 10 cents per $100 lower than it was several years ago, and the county’s peer group has an average real estate tax rate of 63 cents per $100 of assessed value.

While the assessed value of properties increased 26 percent in 2023, after reassessment, Laux said the values have remained “relatively flat” since then, and the only increase in tax revenue has been from other taxes, especially the sales tax, which has grown an average of 10 percent per year, driven by online shopping. Overall, revenue increased by 6.7 percent a year over a five-year period, he said, but that was driven to some extent by revenue from grants.

Expenditures were also influenced by grants, said Laux, growing at an average of 8 percent a year, “but clearly an anomaly because of projects that were offset by grants.”

The county has a policy to keep the ratio of its debt versus assessed value of properties at 2.5 percent, said Vaux, and the county’s ratio is currently a tenth of that, at 0.25 percent.

In terms of debt versus expenditures, Vaux said the county’s policy is to keep the ratio at no more than 12 percent, and it’s currently at just 1.08 percent.

Regarding debt, he said, “You’re in a very strong position.”

Laux gave the board an idea of the tax increases needed to fund each of three plans being developed by Schneider Electric of Richmond to address maintenance issues in county buildings, plus purchase a new facility for the fire department at a cost of $500,000. He said that purchasing the fire department facility and funding the $1.1 million Base Project Schneider developed would take a real estate tax increase of 1.5 cents in 2026 and 0.5 cents in 2029. The Base Project would make improvements in such areas as building envelopes and lighting to reduce energy consumption.

The Impact Project, which would cost $9.1 million and would include all the items in the Base Project, plus solar panels, replacement of boilers and HVAC equipment at various county buildings, and a full renovation of Thomas Hunter Middle School, would, when the fire department facility is added, require a 4.5-cent increase in real estate taxes in 2026, plus a 0.5-cent increase in 2028, said Laux.

Finally, a proposal to provide a new building for Thomas Hunter Middle School and make necessary repairs to other buildings, plus a firehouse facility, would cost $40 million and require a 16.5-cent increase in real estate taxes in 2026, plus a 0.5-cent increase in 2028.

“We don’t expect that to happen,” said Laux.

He said any of the scenarios would comply with the county’s financial policies, but the challenge would be finding the revenue for them. A possible legislative measure to allow localities to increase their sales tax by up to 4 cents to pay for school projects would help, he said.

In terms of basic numbers, each 1-cent increase in the tax rate would provide the county with revenue of approximately $206,071, said Laux, and each $1 million borrowed would require annual debt service of $80,000-$90,000.

Public hearings

The board held two public hearings, voting unanimously after the first one to allow Verizon Wireless to locate equipment on the county’s monopole tower at the rescue squad building at Hudgins for a fee of $28,000 annually.

Supervisor Mike Walls pointed out that the county is paying the rescue squad and fire department combined $2,400 a month to lease the ground where the monopole towers are at the rescue squad building and Station 2 in Bohannon.

“This will cover that,” he said.

Judy Rowe, chairman of the Mathews Broadband Advisory Board, said that the county expects to have the same agreement with Verizon for the Bohannon tower, which will be “revenue free and clear.”

The second public hearing was on a text amendment to allow communications towers in the R-2 zoning district. It was pointed out that the county allows such towers by right in every zoning district except the R-2 and Village Mixed Use districts, including the R-1 district, which generally has greater restrictions than R-2. The equipment that will go on the Hudgins and Bohannon towers will eventually enable service for the entire county except Gwynn’s Island, said the report, and the zoning change was needed in order to place a tower on the island.

The board unanimously approved the amendment.

In other matters, the board:

—Heard from Taylor Stover, a CPA with Robinson, Farmer, Cox Associates, that the county’s financial audit had received unmodified opinions in all three areas—financial statements overall, internal control over financial reporting and on compliance and other matters, and compliance for each major program on internal control over federal awards. He said an unmodified opinion “is a clean statement.” Asked by supervisor Janice Phillips “What can we do better,” Stover replied, “There were no findings, so that’s a good thing,” and he praised county staff, saying he loved working with them;

—Unanimously approved a rate increase for the Gloucester-Mathews Humane Society to $19.28 a day for quarantined dogs and increased the monthly payment from $2,000 to $2,165;

—Took no action on a motion made in last month’s meeting that would have allowed for permanent pump and haul as needed in the county and would have added Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill to the list. It also took no action on a motion by Supervisor Dave Jones to withdraw the original motion because the board is “moving forward now with a possible solution.” Jones instead withdrew his motion to withdraw, and the board decided to discuss the matter in closed session, and

—Voted unanimously to have County Administrator Ramona Wilson make an effort to recoup the $68,000 the county paid for a Next Gen system at Hole in the Wall—a system that was never installed.

During the supervisors’ reports portion of the agenda, Phillips decried the lack of public water service in the Court House area. She said the fires in California were disturbing, and that a fire in downtown Mathews would be difficult to control because of the lack of water. She said the issue was one “to add to our list.”