Hours after Superintendent Dr. Wiley Doby asked parents and principals from around Rowan County to rally behind a multimillion-dollar bond referendum for school construction, the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education met with Rowan County commissioners to discuss the idea.

While the two groups appeared to agree that borrowing money next year to pay for school construction projects is necessary, they made no decision on how much they should ask voters to borrow or where new schools should be built.

“I think it’s very important for us to make our needs known in a very concrete and real way,” Doby said. “Communication is so important.”

Several at the meeting Tuesday night, held in the county office building on West Innes Street, said that the school board and county Board of Commissioners will have to work together if voters are to support a bond referendum.

“We all are going to have to start working as a team,” school board member David Aycoth said. “We can’t do something in a vacuum and then throw it to you all for approval.”

“We are going to have to have a lot of money, and to do that we’re going to need community support,” school board member L.A. Overcash added.

“I hope we all can come together to sell a package,” Commissioner Leda Belk said.

But many expressed concern about how to garner support from taxpayers at a time when Rowan County, North Carolina and the nation face an economic downturn.

Early this year, commissioners balked when school board members suggested a $72 million bond referendum that included nearly $50 million for a new high school and three new elementary schools.

Rowan County taxpayers still have $32 million to pay in the next 15 years on $44 million in local school construction bonds that voters approved in 1993. That year, bonds were an easier sell because less than 20 percent of the county’s classrooms had air conditioning. Now virtually all classrooms have it.

Martha West, a school board member and retired school administrator, said the condition of schools affects Rowan County’s ability to recruit new businesses.

But with construction of new power plants boosting Rowan County’s tax revenues, Commissioner Gus Andrews sounded hopeful that a large property tax increase won’t be necessary to pay off debt for school construction.

“This year is frustrating for me and I know it’s been frustrating for the schools. ... But things are going to turn around.”

Contact Brad A. Hodges at 704-797-4266 or bhodges@salisburypost.com .