County of Kanawha v. W.Va. Bd. of Educ.

• Citation: 639 S.E.2d 893
• Decision Date: 04 December 2006
• Docket Number: No. 33081.,33081.
• Parties: The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the COUNTY OF KANAWHA, a Public Corporation, Plaintiff Below, Appellant v. WEST VIRGINIA BOARD OF EDUCATION, a Public Corporation, and Dr. David Stewart, as Superintendent of Schools of the State of West Virginia, Defendants Below, Appellees.
• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia

639 S.E.2d 893

The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the COUNTY OF KANAWHA, a Public Corporation, Plaintiff Below, Appellant v. WEST VIRGINIA BOARD OF EDUCATION, a Public Corporation, and Dr. David Stewart, as Superintendent of Schools of the State of West Virginia, Defendants Below, Appellees.

No. 33081.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted November 1, 2006.

Decided December 4, 2006.

Concurring Opinion of Chief Justice Davis January 3, 2007.

Syllabus by the Court

1. "The concept of equal protection of the laws is inherent in article three, section ten of the West Virginia Constitution, and the scope and application of this protection is coextensive or broader than that of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution." Syllabus Point 3, Robertson v. Goldman, 179 W.Va. 453, 369 S.E.2d 888 (1988).

2. "The mandatory requirements of `a thorough and efficient system of free schools' found in Article XII, Section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution, make education a fundamental, constitutional right in this State." Syllabus Point 3, Pauley v. Kelly, 162 W.Va. 672, 255 S.E.2d 859 (1979).

3. "Because education is a fundamental, constitutional right in this State, under our Equal Protection Clause any discriminatory classification found in the State's educational financing system cannot stand unless the State can demonstrate some compelling State interest to justify the unequal classification." Syllabus Point 4, Pauley v. Kelly, 162 W.Va. 672, 255 S.E.2d 859 (1979).

4. A statute that creates a lack of uniformity in the State's educational financing system is subject to strict scrutiny, and this discrimination will be upheld only if necessary to further a compelling state interest.

5. "`[I]f the State takes some action which denies or infringes upon a person's fundamental right to an education, then strict scrutiny will apply and the State must prove that its action is necessary to serve some compelling State interest. Furthermore, any denial or infringement of the fundamental right to an education for a compelling State interest must be narrowly tailored.' Phillip Leon M. v. Greenbrier County Board of Education, 199 W.Va. 400, 409, 484 S.E.2d 909 918 (1996) (McHugh, J., concurring, in part, and dissenting, in part) (citations omitted). W.Va. Const. art. XII, section 1." Syllabus Point 2, Cathe A. v. Doddridge County Bd. of Educ., 200 W.Va. 521, 490 S.E.2d 340 (1997).

6. W.Va.Code § 18-9A-12 (1993), to the extent that it fails to provide that a county school board's allocated state aid share shall be adjusted to account for the fact that a portion of the county school board's local share is required by law to be used to support a non-school purpose, violates equal protection principles because it operates to treat county school boards required by law to provide financial support to non-school purposes less favorably than county school boards with no such requirement.

James K. Brown, Jackson Kelly, PLLC, Williamsburg, Taunja Willis Miller, Jackson Kelly, PLLC, Martinsburg, for the Appellant.

Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., Attorney General, Barbara H. Allen, Managing Deputy Attorney General, for the Appellees.

MAYNARD, Justice:

The Kanawha County Board of Education, the appellant herein, appeals the December 9, 2005, order of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County that granted summary judgment to the appellees, the West Virginia Board of Education and its Superintendent, Steven L. Paine,¹ in the appellant's action seeking a declaration that the appellees' method of financing the Kanawha County school system violates the equal protection clause of the State Constitution. After careful consideration of the parties' arguments and the circuit court's order, we reverse the circuit court. We also hold that W.Va.Code § 18-9A-12 (1993), to the extent that it fails to provide that a county school board's allocated state aid share shall be adjusted to account for the fact that a portion of the county school board's local share is required by law to be used to support a non-school purpose, violates equal protection principles because it operates to treat county school boards required by law to provide financial support to non-school purposes less favorably than county school boards with no such requirement.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS

The appellant, Kanawha County Board of Education (hereinafter "Kanawha County school board" or "County school board"), operates the public schools of Kanawha County. The appellees, West Virginia Board of Education and its superintendent (hereinafter "State school board"), administer the funding of the public schools of each county according to a financing formula set out in W.Va.Code §§ 18-9A-11 and 18-9A-12.² The State Board applies this formula to provide State financial resources to supplement the financial resources of the State's county school boards.

This financing formula for schools has been summarized by this Court as contemplating,

a shared responsibility of education costs to be borne by the State and individual counties.

Very broadly, the operation of the formula may be described as follows. First, a county's estimated level of need, or "basic foundation program," is determined. The basic foundation program is the total sum required for each of seven categories of need. viz., professional educators, service personnel, fixed costs, transportation costs, administrative costs, other current expenses and substitute employees, and improvement of instructional programs. W.Va.Code, 18-9A-12.

Second, the county's "local share" must be computed. W.Va.Code, 18-9A-11(a). Local share is the amount of tax revenue which will be produced by levies, at specified rates, on all real property situate in the county. Local share thus represents the county's contribution to education costs on the basis of the value of its real property. State funding is provided to the county in an amount equal to the difference between the basic foundation program and the local share. W.Va.Code, 18-9A-12.

State ex rel. Boards of Educ. v. Chafin, 180 W.Va. 219, 221-222, 376 S.E.2d 113, 115-116 (1988) (footnote omitted).

Pursuant to a Special Act passed by the Legislature in 1957, the Kanawha County Board of Education is charged with distributing a part of the proceeds of its annual regular levies to the support of the Kanawha County Public Library. According to this Special Act, in part:

Sec. 5. Financing. — In order to provide for the support, maintenance and operation of the public library hereby created, and any and all branches thereof, the supporting governing authorities shall, upon written request by its board of directors, levy annually as follows within the respective taxing districts of the governing authorities, on each one hundred dollars of assessed valuation of the property taxable in the area served by it according to the last assessment for state and county purposes, amounts not exceeding the following amounts for the fiscal year beginning July first, one thousand nine hundred fifty-seven, and for each succeeding fiscal year, as follows: by the board of education of the county of Kanawha, class one, one cent; class two, two cents; class three, four cents; class four, four cents; by the county court of Kanawha County, class one, one cent; class two, two cents; class three, four cents; class four, four cents; and by the city of Charleston, class one, one cent class two, two cents; class four, four cents. Each year the board of directors shall request each of the three governing authorities to levy the same amount on each one hundred dollars of assessed valuation of property of the same class, and the amount of the levy on the respective classes of property shall be in the same ratio as the maximum amount of levy on the said classes of property authorized herein. In addition to the aforesaid amounts which, upon written request by the board, the governing authorities shall levy, each governing authority may support the public library with any other general or special revenues or excess levies. All income realized by the operation of the public library from any sources other than the above levies shall be used by the board of directors for the support and maintenance of the public library.³ (Footnote added).

Chapter 178, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1957. The circuit court below found that in fiscal year 2002-2003, $2,209,600.00 of Kanawha County's regular tax levy funds were remitted under the Special Act to the Kanawha County Public Library, and that in fiscal year 2003-2004, the diverted amount was $2,228,070.00.

The problem in this case is that when the State school board calculates the County school board's local share under W.Va.Code § 18-9A-11, for each fiscal year, it includes in the local share the portion of the regular tax levy remitted to the library pursuant to the Special Act. The County school board explains in its brief to this Court that "the effect of this fictitious inflation of the Kanawha Board's Local Share was a pro tanto diminution in these amounts in such fiscal years of the Kanawha Board's [state share]. Similar consequences have resulted in past fiscal years and will result in subsequent fiscal years." Thus, the County school board wants the State school board, in computing the amount of the County school board's State share, to exclude from its local share the portion of regular tax levy proceeds directed to support the county library.

Accordingly, in 2003, the Kanawha County school board filed a complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against the State school board and its superintendent asking the circuit court to declare that W.Va. Code § 18-9A-11 and related provisions, as interpreted and applied by the State Board, in combination with the Special Act, creates a discriminatory classification of the County school board within the State's public school financing system in violation of the State Constitution's equal protection...