Jackson v. Shadix

• Decision Date: 10 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. S99G1658., No. S99G1606
• Citation: 533 S.E.2d 706,272 Ga. 631
• Parties: JACKSON v. SHADIX et al. Carroll County et al. v. Shadix et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

533 S.E.2d 706

272 Ga. 631

JACKSON v. SHADIX et al.

Carroll County et al. v. Shadix et al.

Nos. S99G1606, S99G1658.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 10, 2000.

Reconsideration Denied July 28, 2000.

Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Daniel M. Formby, Deputy Attorney General, Warren R. Calvert, Senior Assistant Attorney General, David A. Runnion, Assistant Attorney General, for Jackson.

Carothers & Mitchell, Richard A. Carothers, Thomas M. Mitchell, Buford, David A. Basil, Carrollton, for Carroll County.

Gary P. Bunch, Atlanta, for Shadix.

R. Mark Mahler, Canton, James F. Grubiak, Kelly J. Pridgen, Walter E. Sumner, Atlanta, Ernest De Pascale, Jr., Athens, Lee, Black, Scheer & Hart, R. Jonathan Hart, Emily E. Garrard, Savannah, amici curiae.

BENHAM, Chief Justice.

We granted the writ of certiorari in this case to consider the decision by the Court of Appeals that a special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) authorized by a referendum in Carroll County terminated when the maximum amount of revenues specified in the referendum was raised, not when the maximum time period for collecting the tax had expired.¹ Because we disagree with the finding of ambiguity on which the decision of the Court of Appeals is based, we reverse its judgment.

On July 13, 1993, the Carroll County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution calling for the submission to voters of a referendum for the imposition of a special purpose local option sales tax.² In the resolution, the Board set forth the uses for which the SPLOST proceeds were to be used, which included the funding of road, street, and bridge projects, as well as funding for fire protection and recreation, and for water, sewer and jail projects.

The County Commission Chairman published a Notice of Election concerning the SPLOST referendum, and the issue appeared on the November 2, 1993, ballot, reading as follows:

Shall a special [one] percent sales and use tax be imposed in Carroll County for the raising of not more than $34,000,000 for a period of time not to exceed four (4) years, for paving, resurfacing, traffic control and improvement to the system of roads, streets and bridges within the county; and for a period of time not to exceed five (5) years for the purpose of funding capital improvements relating to fire protection services, recreational facilities, public buildings and water and sewerage projects within the county and its respective municipalities?

Carroll County voters approved the referendum, and the SPLOST was implemented. On April 1, 1994, the State Revenue Commissioner began to collect and administer the tax. As of May 21, 1998, the Revenue Commissioner had collected gross SPLOST revenues in the approximate amount of $34,009,170. By June 1998, the Commissioner had distributed SPLOST revenues to Carroll County in the approximate amount of $34,285,209. In August 1998, appellees, a Carroll County resident and a taxpayers' group, sought declaratory and injunctive relief to stop Carroll County and the State Revenue Commissioner from continuing to collect and disburse SPLOST revenues. In their complaint, appellees asserted that under the referendum's terms, the Carroll County SPLOST automatically terminated when the Commissioner had collected $34 million. The trial court rejected that claim, and ruled that the SPLOST would not terminate until expiration of the maximum period of time the referendum permitted for the collection of SPLOST revenues, which the trial court interpreted as five years after the tax's implementation (March 31, 1999). The Court of Appeals found that the statute was ambiguous regarding the termination of a mixed-purpose SPLOST and construed the ambiguity it perceived against Carroll County.

1. The statute in question, the 1987 version of OCGA § 48-8-112, provided for termination of SPLOSTs as follows:

(1) If the [tax] resolution ... provided for the issuance of general obligation debt ... [at] the end of the first calendar quarter ending more than 80 days after [validation of the debt is denied];

(2) On the final day of the maximum period of time specified for the imposition of the tax; or

(3) If the tax was imposed solely for purposes other than road, street and bridge purposes, as of the end of the calendar quarter during which the commissioner determines that the tax will have raised revenues sufficient to provide to the county net proceeds equal to or greater than the amount specified as the maximum amount of net proceeds to be raised by the tax.³

The statute thus plainly provided for only three measures for determining the termination date of a SPLOST. The first was applicable only when the resolution provided for general obligation debt, which was not the case here. The third measure applied only when the tax was imposed "solely for purposes other than road, street and bridge purposes," and was not applicable to the tax here because the tax was imposed in part for road, street, and bridge purposes. The second measure, however, which was not limited by the purpose of the tax or by a requirement for general obligation debt, as the other two measures were, provided for termination of the tax at the end of the period established in the referendum. The unmistakable and unambiguous meaning of those provisions was that a SPLOST that was not limited to purposes other than road, street, and bridge purposes, and that did not provide in its resolution for general obligation debt, was to be measured by the period of time specified in the resolution.

The "implications" drawn by the Court of Appeals from other parts of the statute do not require a contrary interpretation. None of the statutory provisions relating to the amount specified in the referendum apply to the SPLOST in the present case because OCGA § 48-8-112(b)(3), as it existed in 1987, provided that if the "tax is to be imposed in whole or in part for road, street, and bridge purposes the maximum cost and maximum proceeds to be raised shall be omitted." Since the purposes for the tax here included road, street, and bridge purposes, the amount to be raised was not a necessary element of the proposal. Thus, no amount need have been specified at all. The fact that the taxing authority sought to provide more information to the voters than the statute required (i.e., the amount of the taxes to be raised that would be spent on road, street, and bridge purposes) is no basis for invalidating the entire scheme of taxation. Finally, as noted by Judge Eldridge in his dissent below, the legislature's 1997 amendment of OCGA § 48-8-112(b)(3), providing that SPLOSTs established for mixed purposes will terminate when the amount provided for has been collected, indicates the General Assembly's belief that the time-based termination provision in the 1987 version of OCGA § 48-8-112(b)(2) controlled the termination of SPLOSTs such as the one involved here.

2. Whether, as Judge Eldridge argued in his dissent in the Court of Appeals, the language of the referendum ballot quoted above is considered merely a form by which approval of a tax, the details of which are controlled by statute, is accomplished, or the ballot language is regarded as an agreement between the County and its taxpayers, the language employed here was sufficiently clear without convoluted legal analysis. From a common-sense reading of the text of the referendum in the context of the controlling statute, it is unmistakable that the "maximum period of time specified for the imposition of the tax" was five years: there were only two time periods specified, and the longer of the two was five years. To hold that any other time period controls this tax requires turning the statutory language and the wording of the referendum on their heads.

An analysis of the statute and the referendum persuades us that the trial court was correct in holding that the SPLOST was to terminate after five years, not after collection of the amount mentioned in the referendum. Thus, the Court of Appeals erred in reversing the judgment of the superior court, requiring that this Court, in turn, reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except SEARS, THOMPSON and HINES, JJ., who dissent.

SEARS, Justice, dissenting.

What you see is what you get, correct? Not according to today's majority opinion.

The referendum presented to and approved by the voters of Carroll County stated that the proposed special purpose local option sales tax ("SPLOST") would be imposed "for the raising of not more than $34 million." The majority opinion, however, construes the term "$34 million" to mean "$34 million, plus whatever additional amount can be collected before the expiration of five years." In order to achieve this result, the majority ignores several basic principles of statutory construction. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

1. The 1987 version of the Revenue Code was in effect at the time the Carroll County SPLOST was approved and implemented, and governs the resolution of this appeal. OCGA § 48-8-112, as set forth in the 1987 Code, provided that a SPLOST would terminate on the earliest of the following dates:

(1) If the [tax] resolution ... provided for the issuance of general obligation debt ... [at] the end of the first calendar quarter ending more than 80 days after [validation of the debt is denied];

(2) On the final day of the maximum period of time specified for the imposition of the tax; or

(3) If the tax was imposed solely for purposes other than road, street and bridge purposes, as of the end of the calendar quarter during which the commissioner determines that the tax will have raised revenues sufficient to provide to the county net proceeds equal to or greater than the amount specified as the maximum amount of net proceeds to be raised by the tax.⁴

The Carroll County SPLOST at issue in this matter is a mixed purpose SPLOST—it is intended for both road purposes and...