KINGWOOD — Preston County Schools faces an uncertain future after the defeat of its special levy Tuesday.
With all precincts reporting, unofficial totals showed the “student centered” five-year levy failed to pass by 101 votes.
The tally showed 3,897 votes (50.66 percent) against the levy and 3,796 (49.34 percent) for it.
Board members said some hard financial decisions will have to be made in the wake of the loss of the levy funds.
Preston Board of Education incumbents Jack Keim and Robert “Mac” McCrum will be among those making the decisions, along with Jeff Zigray. Those three led a field of five candidates for the board.
Unofficial totals in the board race were: McCrum, 4,286 (28.02 percent); Zigray, 3,117 (20.38 percent); Keim, 2,957 (19.33 percent); Ron Marthey, 2,755 (18.01 percent); Alan Rogers, 2,154 (14.08 percent).
Provisional ballots must still be counted. No numbers were available immediately on the number of provisional ballots.
“It’s going to be a really hard decision, and it’s going to be a decision that I feel a lot of people are not going to like,” Keim said. “If it doesn’t pass, we have no choice.”
BOE President Crissy Estep said the board would, “make the best decision that’s in the interest of,” the schools.
McCrum said Superintendent Steve Wotring will make recommendations to the board in the wake of the levy’s failure.
“What those recommendations are, we may follow or not,” McCrum said. “That becomes our decision. It’s a recommendation.”
Voters also turned down a levy in 2016. The BOE did surveys and spoke with Local School Improvement Councils in every school before writing the proposed levy that was on Tuesday’s ballot.
