Approximately 70 percent of Fairfax County residents who went to the polls Nov. 3 voted in favor of Fairfax County acquiring approximately $232 million of new debt through bonds to help pay for the public school system’s construction and renovation projects.

Though the Fairfax County School Board could use the money from the bond for any school capital project, the governing body tends to approve a list of projects associated with the debt they are asking the public to acquire.

The renovation of the Marshall High School ($101.8 million) is the most expensive project listed amongst those the 2009 bond would fund. Another high-dollar item that is supposed to be funded through the bond is the new South County Middle School ($50 million).

Though approval for the school was still fairly high, it is markedly lower than the approval rate for the bond passed in 2007, at about 77 percent.

A few elected officials and school administrators were concerned that voters may have overlooked the bond referendum by accident because it was on the backside of the ballot.

“I was upset to see the school bond on the back of the ballot,” said Supervisor Patrick Herrity (R-Springfield).

Herrity, whose constituents are particularly concerned about the new South County Middle School, said he intends to question Fairfax County election officials about why the school bond was the only item on the backside of the ballot.

Fairfax County Public Schools chief operating officer Dean Tistadt said he was also concerned that the placement of the bond referendum question would lead to a lower approval rating than the county is used to seeing. He said he does not want the smaller number of votes, which could be due to the bond referendum question placement, to be interpreted as a decrease in support for new school construction and renovation projects.

Prior to the polls closing, Tistadt said he thought it was unlikely that the school bond referendum would fail to get approved, even if some people missed the question on the backside of the ballot. Fairfax County has not had a school bond fail since the 1970s, he said.

But one of the two organizations with the largest influence over elections, the Fairfax County Republican Committee, did not actually come out in support of the school bond referendum.

Republican volunteers were handing out “sample ballots” — a list of the candidates the Republican Party wants voters to support — that listed the school bond question but left both the “yes” and “no” bubble blank next to it.

For those who support the bond, this is actually an improvement over previous years, when the school bond referendum was simply left off the Republican “sample ballots” handed out at the polls.

Members of the county Republican committee have not been able to agree on whether to support or oppose the bond, said Fairfax Republican chair Anthony Bedell. Some people active in the organization object to the county government carrying debt on principal. Others, like School Board member Liz Bradsher, want the public to support new school construction and renovation projects.