Jackson County Commissioners voted 4-1 to shoot down a $105 million school bond referendum at their Sept. 1 meeting, leaving Jackson County Public Schools in the lurch for funding millions of dollars of capital improvement projects across the district.
The county now faces tough decisions on what projects to cut or significantly scale back, and commissioners are facing a tight timeline to make use of the $52 million dollar grant awarded by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in October 2024 to build a new middle school. The county must break ground on the middle school by September 2027 or forfeit funding. A forfeiture would trigger a two-year pause on any additional NCDPI grants to the county, which would only compound financial challenges as construction costs continue to rise. As of September 2026, steel prices are inflating at an average rate of 2-4% per month.
“I feel like we’re never going to have this opportunity again where we can set our schools in a better place moving forward,” Chairman Mark Letson said as he made a motion to approve putting the general obligation bonds on the ballot.
Tuesday’s vote came as a surprise to many, as it was the last step in the months-long application process the county has undergone to gain approval for the general obligation bond from the Local Government Commission.
Having previously been among a 3-2 majority in favor of placing the bond referendum on the ballot, Letson became the lone school bond referendum supporter at the meeting after Commissioners Todd Bryson and John Smith joined Commissioners Jenny Lynn Hooper and Michael Jennings in opposition.
The Smoky Mountain News reached out Bryson and Smith for comment on their decision to flip. Smith did not respond to SMN requests and Bryson said he did not have time to comment before deadline due to a family matter.
“I’m really puzzled by the outcome,” said JCPS Superintendent Daya Ayers. “I felt like in the last few meetings that there has been support for moving forward with this from three commissioners, so it is a huge disappointment that we landed with the fact that voters won’t be able to make that decision in November.”
About two dozen JCPS administrators, faculty, and staff attended the meeting. Ayers said many left feeling disappointment, frustration, anger, and like the needs of the school system are not being adequately prioritized.
Hooper has remained steadfast in her opposition to the bond referendum throughout the process and said the 5.26% property tax increase (up 0.4% from initial estimates of a 4.86%) was too big a burden on taxpayers who are already struggling with high costs of living.
“Even if we do have a low tax rate, [taxpayers] are not used to that,” Hooper said. “They just had the largest tax increase on the land reevaluation. I just don’t think they need another one right now.”
She also said she doesn’t support putting the bond referendum before voters because she believes voters wouldn’t understand what they are voting for.
As previously reported, the $105 million would be spread out among Smoky Mountain High School, Blue Ridge School, the proposed Smoky Mountain Middle School and the Jackson County Transportation Department for high-priority capital improvement projects.
The bond referendum also allocated around $18 million for high-need maintenance and renovation projects across the county’s nine public schools.
Much of the opposition to the referendum centered on the projected $108.6 million Smoky Mountain Middle School project. Commissioners Hooper and Bryson raised several concerns about the budget, which has ballooned from original estimates of $60 million in the last two years. Bryson placed much of the blame on Pinnacle Architecture, the firm contracted for the project.
“Tonight, I’m putting Pinnacle on notice to get us what we want because they work for Jackson County,” Bryson said. “We’re paying them. If they can’t, then I guess we need to look at others.”
Hooper frequently expressed frustration with the budget inflating and said she thought the bond process has been rushed, in part because the middle school budget has not been finalized.
County Manager Kevin King said the county only has an estimated budget for the middle school project because the final cost will not be determined until it completes the formal bidding process and commissioners award a contract.
Much of the uncertainty surrounding the projected costs comes from how much site work will cost, but that question should be answered by mid-November, according to King.
Since $60 million is the amount allocated ($52 million of which comes from the DPI grant and $8 million of which comes from county funds), that was what contractors were asked to work with, but those original estimates came in before the county finalized a site.
At the meeting, commissioners also expressed concerns about building on the 58-acre middle school site, despite having unanimously approved its $5.8 million purchase in April 2025 following a year-long selection process.
Jennings and Hooper have also stated that they don’t think the county needs a standalone middle school. Jennings has previously said he believes the county’s five Pre K-eighth grade schools support better learning outcomes for middle grade students and make better financial sense.
The school board has said a traditional middle school provides better opportunities for advanced coursework, better support for students with disabilities, access to career and technical classes, access to more arts programming, and better opportunities for teacher collaboration.
Before the Sept. 1 meeting, Bryson asked King to gather information about middle school construction projects in surrounding counties. He found that Swain County has budgeted $48 million for their new middle school project, which will be 100,000 square feet and fit around 650 students, and Graham County has budgeted $38 million for a 108,000 square-foot elementary school, which broke ground on July 1.
Commissioners said if neighboring counties can build for less, Jackson County should be able to as well.
However, Ayers said those schools were built on existing county land, and the building sites did not require the same amount of site preparation as the middle school property. She said the Swain County project does not include athletic fields and is a replacement for an existing middle school, rather than one being built “fresh from the ground up” like is the case in Jackson County.
Ayers also made clear that the middle school property purchase was not the responsibility of the school system or its board — that authority belongs to the county commissioners and the county manager. She believes county leaders did substantial legwork before settling on the site but were constrained by geography.
“They were pulling GIS records and they were looking, so I don’t think that they didn’t do their job,” Ayers said. “I believe that they investigated a lot of areas, but we also have to consider we live in the mountains, and we’re not going to find a flat piece of land like there is in, say, Hyde County on the coast of North Carolina. Even some of our neighboring counties, Macon and Haywood County, have some really good locations of flat property, and it’s generally not the case in Jackson County.”
According to King, the $108 million included full tennis courts, a track, football and soccer fields, softball and baseball fields, fencing, and additional infrastructure. Initial estimates to scrap those athletic facilities and replace them with a large grass field came in around $78 million. King said the county is moving forward with those scaled-back plans following the Sept. 1 vote. He noted that there could be an option for future boards to phase in athletic field projects over a longer period.
Much of the capital improvement work the bond referendum sought to address falls into that same pattern. With the school bond, county commissioners sought to bundle several long-delayed capital projects into one package, aiming to address needs that had repeatedly been put on the back burner before the county’s deadline to place the bond on the ballot ran out.
“Of course, it would be nice to say we have no budget,” King said. “We build what we need. What the kids need. What the school needs and don’t look back. And I think that’s kind of where [Pinnacle and the county] have been. And this process is kind of saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have an unlimited budget. This may have to be a phased approach.’”
Bryson echoed that sentiment at the meeting, saying commissioners were ultimately to blame for the vote’s failure because it packaged all of these projects into a single bond referendum rather than taking a phased approach from the start.
Ayers emphasized that the school system has had a running capital priority list for years, but that commissioners wanted to tackle everything at once.
“I’m not blaming anyone,” she said. “I’m just saying we were talking about what was best for kids, but all along, the school system has had a capital priority list.”
One big question mark following the meeting is the Jackson County bus garage project. Ayers has said this is a need, not a want, and if commissioners don’t find the money for a new bus garage soon, at the very least, the building needs a new roof.
Bond proponents were hoping the referendum would prevent the county from having to place a new roof on the 1950s-era building that itself needs to be replaced, as transportation staff cannot efficiently service the taller, longer school busses that make up the county’s modern fleet.
Blue Ridge School renovations are also up in the air. The county has already allocated $15 million to build a new kitchen and cafeteria, but the bond would have allocated an additional $23.8 million to knock out several other items on the school’s wish list which included a new gymnasium, outdoor sports facilities, and a two-story classroom wing.
Smoky Mountain High School also faces uncertainty. The county has allocated $2.6 million to the school for facilities upgrades; construction on renovations to SMH’s track and field facilities and a new ADA accessible ramp at the stadium have already begun. The bond would have allocated an additional $8.3 million for additional school renovations, a track restroom building, and a replacement field house.
For now, the county is left to sort through those competing needs without the funding mechanism it spent months working toward. Bryson said he still sees the $33 million already committed to JCPS capital projects as real progress, even without the bond.
“That’s $33 million that we’ve spent on schools. I think that’s pretty darn good for our county. I’m proud of it,” Bryson said. “I just feel like the next board, you all can take this phased approach. I think you guys want to see all this stuff done and do this at a phased approach.”
Ayers wanted to make clear that the district isn’t simply asking for more than it needs.
She pointed to three separate grant applications the school system submitted, in three different funding cycles, to renovate Blue Ridge School and Fairview Elementary and to upgrade the Smoky Mountain High track.
All three were denied.
“We want things that are going to be adequate and appropriate to educate our students because it’s about them,” she said. “For those who think we haven’t been trying to do something with the facilities we already have — three times, that grant was submitted, and three times, that grant was not awarded.”