New Wake school bond referendum coming. What it could fund. What it would cost.
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- Commissioners could place an $842.7M school and Wake Tech bond on Nov. 3 ballot.
- Paying the bonds would raise taxes by a half cent, about $22.50 on a $450,000 home.
- Plan allocates $1.2 billion to existing schools and $418.6 million for new schools.
This fall, Wake County voters will have their first say since 2022 on whether they support borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for school construction projects.
The Wake County Board of Commissioners plans to put a school construction bond referendum on the Nov. 3 ballot. Wake County school leaders are finalizing which projects to include in the referendum from their lengthy list of construction needs.
“There’s a limit to how much we can realistically expect to finance each period,” school board member Chris Heagarty said at this week’s facilities committee meeting. “We can’t finance all of our needs.
“I know we have talked about, as a board, the balance between funding new schools to meet population growth and the need to fund renovations to take care of facilities that we have.”
Tax increase likely for new school bond
Under North Carolina law, counties have the primary responsibility for paying for school construction needs.
Wake County uses a mix of cash, bonds that require voter approval and bonds that don’t require a public referendum to finance school construction projects. Wake County voters historically have approved school construction bond referendums. An exception was in 1999 when voters overwhelmingly rejected a $650 million bond issue.
In 2022, voters approved a $530.7 million Wake County school bond.
Under the county’s funding model, commissioners could put $842.7 million in Wake County school system and Wake Tech bonds on this year’s ballot. Paying off those bonds would raise the property tax rate by a half-cent, or $22.50 more per year on a home assessed at $450,000.
The bond referendum would come after voters have seen their property taxes rise in recent years to pay for increased funding for school and county services, as well as non-school bond referenda.
Projects that could be funded by November bond
On Tuesday, Wake County school administrators presented a tentative list of projects that would be funded over the next seven years. The list includes the projects that would be directly paid for by the bond referendum in the 2027-28 and 2028-29 fiscal years.
The plan calls for fully or partially funding three new schools through the bond:
- Marshburn Road Elementary near Wendell
- Poole Road Elementary in Raleigh
- Little Creek Elementary in Zebulon
The plan calls for fully or partially funding major renovations at eight schools through the bond:
- Athens Drive High School in Raleigh
- Briarcliff Elementary School in Cary
- East Garner Middle School
- Ligon Middle School in Raleigh
- Cary High School
- Wendell Elementary School
- Washington Elementary School in Raleigh
- East Wake High School in Wendell
There would also be money set aside from the bond to pay what are called “program requirements.” These items include smaller renovation projects and replacing furniture and other aging equipment at schools
Staff will present the list again in March to see if the board wants to make any changes.
Increasing focus on school renovations
School administrators propose spending $2.9 billion on construction projects over the course of the seven-year plan. Construction of new schools represents a fairly small portion of the spending.
New schools historically represented the majority of the money spent on construction projects as Wake dealt with growth that brought more than 7,000 new students a year in the 2000s. But as growth slowed, Wake began putting a higher share of bond money into renovations, such as in the 2022 referendum.
Wake County is still North Carolina’s largest school district with 160,000 students. But student enrollment dropped this year and the district is in the midst of an ongoing effort to reduce the number of classroom trailers at schools.
Calls to increase spending on school maintenance has intensified in recent years due to highly publicized failures of heating and cooling systems that caused a third of schools to lose instructional time.
The Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators has called on county commissioners to provide enough money in this year’s school bond to fix HVAC issues, The News & Observer previously reported.
School administrators told the board on Tuesday that they’re continuing to work on upgrading HVAC systems at schools.
Of the $2.9 billion over the next seven years, only $418.6 million is for new schools. The plan has $1.2 billion for existing schools and $1.3 billion for program requirements. Part of the program requirements goes toward projects at existing schools.
“What this represents is really a focus on looking at increasing our funding priority for existing schools,” said David Burnett, assistant superintendent for facilities design and construction.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 12:53 PM with the headline "New Wake school bond referendum coming. What it could fund. What it would cost.."
