BLACKSBURG -- A decision on the future of the old Blacksburg Middle School property is more than a year off. Meanwhile, the nearly empty, 50-year-old building continues to decay.

The roof, hit hard by weather this winter, needs replaced. Leaks from it have essentially ruined the gymnasium floor.

"It's unsafe," said Dan Berenato, facilities director for Montgomery County Public Schools.

But school leaders refuse to pump any more money into the aging building while county and Blacksburg officials continue a six-year debate over what to do with the site.

Supervisors have wanted to sell the downtown property for the best -- and most lucrative -- commercial use possible and use the money for school building needs. Blacksburg Town Council has asked for lower-density and civic uses of the property that would preserve the historic neighborhoods nearby.

Wendell Jones, chairman of the Montgomery County School Board, said the board won't help finance a waiting game.

"The school board, or at least from where I sit, is not going to spend any money on that school," he said. "We don't have the money to spend."

The school board uses parts of the main building and its east wing for storage. For the past year, the county's Head Start program has taken up about a quarter of the east wing and paid about 75 percent of the utilities, but the program is likely to leave next year.

While board members' optimism about the site's future is dwindling, members of a group charged with guiding the future for the site -- the Old Blacksburg Middle School Transition Committee -- expressed satisfaction with their progress.

"We're moving forward," said task force member and Montgomery County Supervisor Gary Creed, who downplayed any division among the school board and localities.

Since November, the six-member panel has tweaked a timeline for a two-stage international design contest in which entrants propose uses for the site. Today, few details for the competition are set.

Nominations for the contest are expected to open in August, with five finalists selected by January 2009, according to a version of the timeline discussed Wednesday.

The committee wants to hold a public hearing in April during which residents can explain what they'd like to see, Blacksburg councilman and task force member Paul Lancaster said.

At some point next year, when the finalists are chosen, the county would then ask the council to rezone the site based on the designers' plans.

No one knows just how, or if, that would work, Town Manager Marc Verniel said.

"They [the county] don't want the winner to win, have a proposal that makes it through and not have the zoning to support it," he said. "Our council is going to be reluctant to rezone without having knowing some of those details."

Jones said the contest adds nothing to the debate.

He said the school board might have paid for more upkeep on its building earlier in the six-year debate if some decisions on the property, such as zoning, had been made.

"It does appear we're holding it hostage to get what we want, but that's just part of bargaining," Jones said.

Two bargaining points -- land for an Elliston/Shawsville elementary school and a new Blacksburg High School stadium -- have been met by the county. Now, school board members are waiting on the county to find land for a new Price's Fork Elementary School before they decide whether to surplus the middle school. Updates on that are expected during a closed meeting Tuesday.

While some board members said they want to look at how the school might help alleviate future crowding in Blacksburg's schools, others say they're ready to get rid of the burdensome building.

Jones said he doesn't expect the board would decide to keep the school because the county has "no educational need for it."

Last week, the state of the building led school board member David Dunkenberger to ponder stripping the site of its last piece of identity: the letters that proclaim it school land.

"I don't want anyone to know we have anything to do with that building," he said.

On Friday, Dunkenberger said he is embarrassed by the neglected state of the site. "If we're not going to use the building, we need to get rid of it," he said. "People will look at it and think that Montgomery County is not serious about education."