Board of Ed. of City of Los Angeles v. Watson

• Citation: 63 Cal.2d 829,409 P.2d 481,48 Cal.Rptr. 481
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Decision Date: 11 January 1966
• Parties: , 409 P.2d 481 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF LOS ANGELES et al., Petitioners, v. Philip E. WATSON, as Assessor, etc., Respondent. L. A. 28441.

Page 481

48 Cal.Rptr. 481

63 Cal.2d 829, 409 P.2d 481

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the CITY OF LOS ANGELES et al., Petitioners, v. Philip E. WATSON, as Assessor, etc., Respondent.

L. A. 28441.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Jan. 11, 1966.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 9, 1966.

Jerry F. Halverson, for petitioners.

Roger Arnebergh, city Atty. (Los Angeles), Bourke Jones and James A. Doherty, Asst. City Attys., amici curiae on behalf of petitioners.

Harold W. Kennedy, County Counsel, and A. R. Early, Deputy County Counsel, for respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

This proceeding in mandate involves the constitutionality of section 20811 of the Education Code. Petitioners, the governing boards of several public school districts in Los Angeles County (hereinafter called the districts), seek a writ of mandate to compel the assessor of Los Angeles County to provide them, by May 15, 1965, with information as to the value of tax-assessed property in their respective districts, assessed by him for the 1965-66 fiscal year together with the estimated assessed valuation of taxable property appearing on the secured roll, the unsecured roll, and solvent credits. Section 20811 of the Education Code requires him to provide this information, but he has refused to do so, contending that the section is unconstitutional and that it is impossible for him to comply with it.

Section 20811 provides in pertinent part: '(a) This section shall apply only to those counties having a population in excess of 4,000,000 and to every school district within such a county for which the Board of Supervisors fixes the annual school district tax rate. * * * (b) Upon written request of the governing board of any school district submitted to the county assessor on or before the 20th day of February, the county assessor shall not later than the succeeding 15th day of May advise in writing the governing board of the school district the estimated total assessed valuation of taxable property in the district for the next succeeding fiscal year, together with the estimated total assessed valuation of all taxable property appearing on the secured roll, the unsecured roll, and solvent credits.' ¹

The districts allege that, before February 20, 1965, they requested the assessor to provide them with the information called for by section 20811 but that the assessor refused to comply with their request and will continue to do so since he maintains that, because the section limits its operation to school districts in counties with a population exceeding 4,000,000, it constitutes special legislation in violation of the Tenth, Twenty-eighth and Thirth-third clauses of section 25 of article IV of the California Constitution. ²

Although the time for performance by the assessor of the duties prescribed by section 20811 has long since expired for the 1965-66 fiscal year, the basic issues presented are not moot because the obligation to provide the information set forth in the section recurs annually. (Union Safe Deposit Bank v. City of Menlo Park (1935), 3 Cal.2d 264, 266, 43 P.2d 811; American Securities Co. v. Forward (1934), 220 Cal. 566, 571-572, 32 P.2d 343, 96 A.L.R. 1268.)

It should be noted at the outset that the parties are in agreement as to the fundamentals by which the constitutionality of section 20811 is to be determined and that their disagreement relates only to the applicability of the rules to the circumstances of the present case. A summary of the relevant principles appears in Lelande v. Lowery (1945), 26 Cal.2d 224, 232, 157 P.2d 639, 175 A.L.R. 1109, which establishes that, while a legislative classification is improper if it is not founded upon some natural, constitutional or intrinsic distinction which reasonably justifies a difference in treatment, a classification which has a substantial relation to a legitimate object to be accomplished is valid. If any state of facts can reasonably be conceived which would sustain a statutory classification, there is a presumption that this state of facts exists and the burden of demonstrating arbitrariness rests upon the party who assails the classification. The Legislature is not bound, in order to adopt a constitutionally valid statute, to extend it to all cases which might possibly be reached, but is free to recognize degrees of harm and to confine its regulation to those classes of cases in which the need is deemed to be the most evident. We pause also to note, in the disposition of this case, the conclusion reached in Matter of Petition of Burke (1911), 160 Cal. 300, 303, 116 P. 755, that the mere fact a class to which a statute applies consists of only one unit or entity does not render the enactment invalid. Thus, although Los Angeles is the only county in the state to which section 20811 applies (Gov.Code, § 28021), this is not a ground for condemning the act as special legislation in violation of the Constitution.

Under the foregoing principles, legislation classifying governmental entities on the basis of population has been upheld where the size of the population bore a reasonable relation to the purposes of the statute. (Great Lakes Properties, Inc. v. City of Rolling Hills Estates (1964), 225 Cal.App.2d 525, 533-534, 37 Cal.Rptr. 448; Sacramento Municipal Util. Dist. v. Spink (1956), 145 Cal.App.2d 568, 572-573, 303 P.2d 46.) On the other hand, where the population of the class designated in the statute did not factually justify distinguishing treatment, such legislation has been held invalid. (Consolidated Printing & Pub. Co. v. Allen (1941), 18 Cal.2d 63, 70-71, 112 P.2d 884.)

According to the districts, the purpose of section 20811 is to permit them to adopt annual budgets which will be at or near the maximum permitted by law. They reason as follows: the Education Code prescribes a maximum tax rate for school districts (Ed.Code, § 20751), and it requires that a district's budget for the ensuing fiscal year must be submitted to the county superintendent of schools by July 1 (Ed.Code, § 20601). If the districts are to prepare a budget which will utilize as much money as the maximum tax rate will permit, it is necessary for them to know, by May 15 of each year, the approximate assessed valuation of property for the following fiscal year, and without the aid of section 20811 they would not have reliable estimates of these figures until after their budgets have been prepared. The time lag between the date of the preparation of a district's budget for a particular year and the ascertainment of the assessed valuation of property for that year compels the districts, in computing their budgets, to make valuation estimates for the succeeding fiscal year at their own risk and, in order to assure that the maximum tax rate will not be exceeded, they make conservative estimates of the tax base. For example, the budget of the school districts governed by the Board of Education of the City of Los Angeles for the 1964-65 fiscal year called for a tax rate which turned out to be significantly below the maximum permitted by law. The underestimation of available funds results in a curtailment of a school district's educational program, a consequence which it is asserted will be avoided if the assessor is required to provide the information specified in section 20811.

In support of their claim that availability of information as to the probable financial resources for the succeeding fiscal year is more essential for school districts located in Los Angeles County than for those located in other counties, the districts allege: one of the petitioners, the Board of Education of the City of Los Angeles, governs school districts with a combined student enrollment in excess of 765,000, housed in over 594 separate schools, and employing over 58,000 persons. The total budget required to plan and finance the educational program for these students is over $500,000,000. The annual increase in student enrollment in these districts is expected to be in excess of 25,000 students, requiring the employment of over 1,000 new teachers and other personnel annually. In order to contract for the employment of these persons and to mount the most effective educational program, the board must know, prior to the end of the school year, how much money it will have available. The sheer practical problem of assembling a budget of this size, involving many educational programs for hundreds of thousands of students, tens of thousands of employees, and hundreds of school plants, requires that budget planning start long before the close of the school year. For the 1964-65 fiscal year, the city on half-day or double sessions. on half-day or double sessions.

The allegations continue: the same problems to a lesser degree confront the county's other districts, which are affected by the large size of the county and the continuing influx of population. The increase in urbanization has resulted in internal transiency throughout the districts, and there has been a large increase in educationally deprived students, many of them from states which have not provided that same level of educational services as the districts in Los Angeles County. These districts must plan, create, and establish new kinds of educational programs to meet the needs of such students, including relatively largescale efforts to mitigate the effects of poverty on the education of minority groups.

The problems outlined, it is asserted, face school districts in Los Angeles County in far greater degree and variety than school districts in other counties and require more accurate planning for the use of the available tax dollar. An indication of the importance to the districts of the information requested of the assessor is that a one-cent raise in the tax Board of Education of the erned by the Board of Education of the City of Los Angeles will result in over $600,000 of tax income, assuming 100% collections.

In reply to these allegations, the assessor contends that the...