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.
