Collins v. City of Boston

• Decision Date: 18 March 1959
• Citation: 338 Mass. 704,157 N.E.2d 399
• Parties: John E. COLLINS v. CITY OF BOSTON. William F. LOONEY v. CITY OF BOSTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 399

157 N.E.2d 399

338 Mass. 704

John E. COLLINS v. CITY OF BOSTON.

William F. LOONEY v. CITY OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Oct. 10, 1958.

Decided March 18, 1959.

A. Kenneth Carey, Danvers, Donald E. Carey, Boston, for plaintiffs.

William H. Kerr, Boston, for defendant.

Before WILKINS, C. J., and RONAN, SPALDING, COUNIHAN and CUTTER, JJ.

SPALDING, Justice.

These are two actions of contract which were consolidated for trial. The plaintiff Collins was a member of the faculty at the Boston Teachers College which, during the 1951-1952 school year, was under the control of the Boston school department. The plaintiff Looney was president of the Teachers College during that year. Each plaintiff seeks to recover alleged unpaid balances of compensation for his services for that period. Collins also seeks to recover compensation claimed by thirty-two faculty members who have assigned their claims to him. The cases were heard on a statement of agreed facts, amounting to a case stated. In each case the judge ordered judgment for the defendant. The plaintiffs appealed. G.L. c. 231, § 96.

The agreed facts include the following: On April 2, 1951, the defendant's school committee, by a unanimous vote of all its members, passed an order appropriating the sum of $22,770,058.37 for general school purposes for the fiscal year 1951. This sum included $17,806,243.42 designated for 'Instruction.' This order appropriated the maximum amount authorized by St.1936, c. 224, as amended by St.1949, c. 117. On the same day, pursuant to a vote, the committee by its secretary sent a letter to the mayor of Boston stating that the entire amount available under the legal limit had been appropriated and that this amount fell short of the sum necessary to meet the needs of the school system. The committee requested that the mayor recommend to the city council that it appropriate an additional $804,362.32 for school purposes, in accordance with the provisions of law governing appropriations. The letter concluded with the following: 'This amount does not provide for increased cost of supplies or for any additional salary adjustments.' On the same day the school committee also submitted to the mayor a request that all of its employees receive an annual increase of $260. Subsequently the mayor recommended that the city council appropriate an additional $1,000,000 for general school purposes. On June 4, 1951, the city council appropriated that sum, specifying that $755,258 of that total was for 'Instruction.' Thus there was a total appropriation for instruction of $18,561,501.42 for the fiscal year 1951.

On August 31, 1951, after all appropriations for the fiscal year 1951 had been made, the school committee voted a new schedule of compensation for the president, professors, adviser of women and assistant professors of the Teachers College to take effect as of September 1, 1951. The new schedule set a fixed amount of compensation for the president; the compensation of the others was expressed in terms of a minimum, an annual increment and a maximum. This new schedule granted an increase in pay above the previous levels as supplemented by the $260 general increase voted in June. The schedule was subject to the limitation that 'any person holding a position included in the foregoing salary schedule shall of September 1, 1951, be placed on that step of said salary schedule corresponding to his or her years of service in the specified position, but in no such case shall the salary be reduced.' On September 19, 1951, the school committee passed an order declaring that it was the intention of a majority of those who voted for the increases in salaries that those increases take effect as of September 1, 1951, 'without reference to their being paid on an increment basis,' and directing the fiscal officers of the city to pay such increases in accordance with that intention.

The auditor and the treasurer of the defendant refused to pay the increases granted by the school committee's vote of August 31, 1951, on the ground that there was no appropriation available at the time the vote was passed and it was therefore illegal and void. The plaintiff Looney and the plaintiff Collins and his assignors were not paid the increases from September 1, 1951, to August 31, 1952. During this period they accepted all compensation paid to them but 'without prejudice to the instant cause[s] of action.'

It is agreed that if as a matter of law the $18,561,501.42 total appropriation for instruction was available for the purposes of the school committee vote granting salary increases to the plaintiffs then at all relevant times there was an unencumbered balance in this appropriation sufficient to cover the expenditures required by the vote.

1. The first question for decision is whether the school committee's vote raising the salaries of the plaintiffs was valid and binding upon the defendant.

The doctrine of the independence of school committees in matters pertaining to the management of the public schools has often been discussed by this court. See, e. g., Morse v. Ashley, 193 Mass. 294, 79 N.E. 481; Ring v. City of Woburn, 311 Mass. 679, 43 N.E.2d 8; O'Brien v. City of Pittsfield, 316 Mass. 283, 55 N.E.2d 440. School committees have long enjoyed the exclusive power to select and contract with teachers and to fix their compensation. Batchelder v. City of Salem, 4 Cush. 599; City of Charlestown v. Gardner, 98 Mass. 587; Decatur v. Auditor of City of Peabody, 251 Mass. 82, 146 N.E. 360; Hayes v. City of Brockton, 313 Mass. 641, 48 N.E.2d 683; Watt v. Town of Chelmsford, 323 Mass. 697, 84 N.E.2d 28. G.L. c. 71, §§ 37, 38. And a school committee may divert funds appropriated for other purposes in order to provide a salary increase for teachers. Leonard v. School Committee of Springfield, 241 Mass. 325, 135 N.E. 459; Lynch v. City of Fall River, 336 Mass. 558, 147 N.E.2d 152.

The defendant argues that these principles, in part at least, are inapplicable to the city of Boston. We are told that here there was no appropriation available to pay the salary increases, and therefore the cases at bar are not governed by the principle announced in Leonard v. School Committee of Springfield, 241 Mass. 325, 135 N.E. 459, because that case merely held that G.L. c. 44, § 32, 'did not effect any change in the powers of a school committee to establish the salaries of teachers within the total amounts appropriated for school purposes.' (Emphasis supplied.)

The short answer to this is that there was an appropriation available here if the Boston school committee had the power to use or to reallocate sums already appropriated for instruction in order to provide for the salary increases. It is not disputed that a total of $18,561,501.42 had been appropriated for instruction prior to the committee vote on August 31, 1951. The basic question, then, is whether the Boston school committee, by any statute here applicable or by action of the school committee itself or of the city council, has been deprived of freedom of action with respect to any part of this appropriation available for instruction.

We are aware that the Legislature has enacted a long series of acts dealing specifically with the powers of the Boston school committee ¹ and that these statutes and others comprise a comprehensive statutory system applicable to school finances in Boston. In these statutes, however, we have found no provision limiting the school committee, in any respect here relevant, in its freedom to deal with funds which that committee itself has power to appropriate for school purposes. Indeed the provisions of one statute applicable here show that broad, and in one respect unusual, powers have been conferred upon the Boston school committee. Statute 1936, c. 224, as amended by St.1949, c. 117, empowers four fifths of all the members of the committee to appropriate directly funds for school purposes within stated limits. This is a departure from the more usual procedure where the school committee submits requests for funds to the executive of the municipality who in turn submits a budget to the city council or similar body having the power to appropriate funds. It cannot be doubted that the school committee's power has not been limited in any way now material with respect to funds that it directly appropriates.

Statute 1936, c. 224, as amended, also provides that the school committee may request additional appropriations from the...