Bellanca Aims to Help Schools Through County Board

When first learning Tom Bellanca's campaign platform, the question that comes to mind is: why isn't he running for school board? But while schools rank high among the topics dear to the Democrat running for county chairman, they are not his only concern. The Metro extension and setting an appropriate tax rate are also on his agenda.

However, schools top his list.

And one area where he believes could have more impact on the school system via the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors rather than the school board is funding. Supervisors determine the real estate tax rate each year and transfer a portion of the revenue to the school system. The Loudoun County School Board then decides how to spend the money.

For Bellanca, Loudoun’s problem with school overcrowding is personal. He and his wife have a two-year-old daughter who will enter the school system in a few years and, according to Bellanca, the county’s school-age population will double over the next 10 years. The existing schools cannot support such growth alone. Bellanca is running for chairman of in part because he believes the existing board has no plans to deal with the school-overcrowding problem.

“We need to identify what the actual future populations will be,” said Bellanca. “We need to plan where the schools will be located and how we will get the land to put the schools on. None of this planning has ever been done.”

If elected, Bellanca promises to begin calculating specific population projections and identifying sites for new schools. Such a task is nothing new for Bellanca, who has substantial experience working in the area’s real estate and building management industries.

Bellanca’s opponents, however, are focused on taxes. Specifically, Chairman Scott York (I-At Large) and Steve Stockman—both competing this year for the Republican Party nomination—argue that the board of supervisors needs to lower the tax rate in the county. Bellanca, though, said during a recent interview that York and Stockman are misleading voters.

“They are deceiving people,” he said, explaining that the tax rate is only part of the equation; the other part, real estate assessments, remains relatively low. “Though the tax rate is higher, the tax bills are going down. Ultimately, people care how much they are actually paying in taxes, and that number has gone down.”

Bellanca clarified that he was referring to the time period since 2008, when the current board took office.

Still, Bellanca said he agrees that the county can lower the tax rate, provided certain conditions are met.

“I think we can lower the tax rate and still fund necessary programs we need to fund,” he said. “But we need to make sure we’re funding the services we need. If we told people we need to increase the [average tax bill] by 3 percent to support our kids’ schools, I think the majority of people would support that.”

The Democratic candidate also wants to make the extension of Metrorail to Dulles—and eventually Ashburn—a priority. He promised to strive to gain more federal funding for the project, lamenting the feds’ 14 percent share for Phase 1 construction. There are no current plans for federal funding for Phase 2. That falls well below the 30 percent Bellanca said the federal government often chips in for regional transit projects across the country, and he believes additional federal dollars may become available.

However, Bellanca is trying to be realistic about the project.

“If Loudoun doesn’t fund it and approve it, it won’t make it past the airport,” he said.

Since the candidate projects that Loudoun will a reap substantial economic benefit from having the Metro run through the county, he aims to obtain the necessary funding to ensure that Phase 2 continues past Dulles Airport to Ashburn. He argues that the county’s preliminary projections showing that Loudoun will break even monetarily on the Metro are conservative at best.

“The economic benefit for having a rail in Loudoun is much greater than what they are estimating,” said Bellanca. He estimated that the increase in real estate value alone could reach 30 percent.

Bellanca holds degrees from Randolph-Macon College and George Mason University. He also obtained two real estate degrees from the Building Owners and Managers Institute and the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) Institute, respectively.

[Clarifications: In paragraphs 9 and 11 clarifications were needed. The corrected information is italicized.]