Decatur v. Auditor of City of Peabody

• Decision Date: 02 February 1925
• Citation: 251 Mass. 82,146 N.E. 360
• Parties: DECATUR et al. v. AUDITOR OF CITY OF PEABODY et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

251 Mass. 82

146 N.E. 360

DECATUR et al.

v.AUDITOR OF CITY OF PEABODY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

Feb. 2, 1925.

Petition for mandamus by Rena A. Decatur and others against the Auditor of the City of Peabody and others to compel appropriate city officers to approve pay rolls, draw warrants, and make payments in accordance with contracts of school committee for increase of salaries. Petition dismissed.

S. H. Donnell, of Peabody, for petitioners.

J. J. Ronan, of Salem (H. P. Farnham, of Peabody, on the brief for respondents.

RUGG, C. J.

The great question in this case is whether, when the school committee of a city other than Boston has voted to increase salaries of teachers in the public schools according to its own conceptions of the public needs, and has transmitted the estimate of the annual expenses of the school department based on such increase to the mayor in conformity to the budget requirements of G. L. c. 44, § 32, the mayor and city council are bound to provide appropriations based on such increase. Stated more concisely the question is, whether the ultimate power to establish the salaries of teachers in the public schools, giving instruction in the branches required to be taught by G. L. c. 71, is vested in the school committee or in the mayor and city council of cities outside of Boston.

The pertinent facts are that Peabody was incorporated as a city by Spec. Sts. 1916, c. 300. The form of that charter in its essentials is similar to plan B of G. L. c. 43. Pursuant to previous votes authorizing increases in salaries of teachers, the school committee early in January, 1924, caused individual contracts to be signed in its behalf with each of the petitioners to serve the city at the increased salary. Thereafter the school committee transmitted to the mayor an estimate in detail of the expenses of the school department for 1924, which included an item for increases in the salaries of the teachers adequate to pay the additional amount required to pay salaries at the increased rate. The mayor refused to include in his annual budget the amount of increases in salaries thus requested by the school committee. The budget in this respect as submitted by the mayor was approved by the city council. The present proceeding is brought to compel the appropriate city officers to approve payrolls, to draw warrants and to make payments in accordance with the contracts of the school committee for the increase of salaries.

It has been argued that, since the public schools have been kept open in Peabody during the school year here involved 20 days longer than the period required by G. L. c. 71, § 1, the salaries as fixed by the school committee must be paid, because the city council might have ordered the schools closed for that 20 days. It does not appear that there would have been substantial saving in the expenses of the public schools if that course had been attempted. The written contracts made by the school committee with the teachers call for an annual salary. It cannot be presumed or inferred on this record that a reduction by 20 days in the school year would have resulted in any reduction of expense. Moreover, it is open to doubt whether under the present phrase of the statute the time during which the public schools shall be kept open beyond the mandate of the statute many not be for the school committee alone to determine. Compare G. L. c. 71, § 37; Batchelder v. Salem, 4 Cush. 599, 603;Charlestown v. Gardner, 98 Mass. 587, 590.

Before the enactment of St. 1913, c. 719, entitled ‘An act relative to municipal indebtedness,’ and now embodied in G. L. c. 44, entitled ‘Municipal Finance,’ the powers of the school committee had been settled by numerous decisions, which are collected in Leonard v. School Committee of Springfield, 241 Mass. 325, 135 N. E. 459. It there was said at pages 329, 330 (135 N. E. 461), in summarization of those decisions:

‘The school committee is an independent body, entrusted by law with broad powers, important duties and large discretion. The obligation to select and to contract with teachers implies examination as to their fitness and of necessity catties with it the authority to fix the compensation to be paid. It woudl be vain to impose upon the school committee responsibility for excellence of the instruction to be afforded to pupils and to deprive them of the power to determine the salaries of teachers. There is much of self-sacrifice and devotion to the common welfare among teachers in the public schools. But, nevertheless, the character of service to be obtained depends to a considerable degree upon the compensation offered. The full and appropriate discharge of their duties by school committees requires ample power to select competent teachers. The Legislature, moved by obvious and strong reasons, has vested the school committee with the absolute and unconditional power to agree with teachers upon their salaries to the end that high standards may be secured and maintained in the education of the youth of the Commonwealth. In the exercise of their honest judgment on the question of salaries for teachers, the school committee are not restricted to the amounts appropriated. For the time during which schools must be kept by law the municipalities must pay such salaries as may be fixed by the school committee. To take this power from the school committee would break up the long-established system of our law in regard to public schools. The only supervision which the city council or towns can exercise over the school committee is to vote to close the schools after they have been kept the length of time specified by the law.’

In dealing with municipal finance, by St. 1913, c. 719, the GeneralCourt provided in substance and effect that in all cities except Boston there shall annually be prepared and presented for consideration by the legislative department a budget which shall consist of an itemized and detailed statement of the money required for the several municipal departments and other city charges. The legislative department of the city may reduce or reject any item, but cannot increase any item nor add new items. It also was provided that no department should incur liabilities in excess of the appropriation made in the budget as finally established, with exceptions not here material. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the municipal indebtedness act were repealed by section 22 of that act.

[1] The purpose of that act in general was to set rigid barriers against expenditures in excess of appropriations, to confine the borrowing of money and the issuance of municipal bonds within strict limits and to put all cities upon a sound financial basis as far as possible by legislation. That statute was new in kind with reference to the fiscal management of cities. It ought to be interpreted so as to effectuate its highly salutary and important purpose. Flood v. Hodges, 231 Mass. 252, 120 N. E. 689.

The main provisions of the municipal indebtedness act are in G. L. c. 44, §§ 32 and 31. All the previously existing provisions of the statutes respecting school committees and their powers were re-enacted in substance in G. L. c. 71. The special and hitherto unlimited power of the school committee to contract with teachers is in section 38, and the committee's general authority over schools, in section 37. These provisions are in almost the same words as those long familiar in our statutes.

There are thus in the General Laws two provisions, which, if treated as detached and separate enactments, seem to be contrary one to the other. The chapter on municipal finance appears to give to the mayor and legislative department of the city absolute power over the budget, with complete and exclusive control over appropriations, and thus to require every municipal department to yield to its determination as to the amount of money available for any public expenditure. The chapter relating to public schools appears to vest in the school committee complete and exclusive control over the salaries to be paid to teachers in the public schools without being required to consult with any other public board.

These respective provisions were combined in the...