Laclede Highway District v. Bonner County

• Decision Date: 26 February 1921
• Citation: 33 Idaho 476,196 P. 196
• Parties: LACLEDE HIGHWAY DISTRICT, Appellant, v. BONNER COUNTY, IDAHO, Respondent
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

196 P. 196

33 Idaho 476

LACLEDE HIGHWAY DISTRICT, Appellant, v. BONNER COUNTY, IDAHO, Respondent

Supreme Court of Idaho

February 26, 1921

HIGHWAY DISTRICTS - COUNTIES - CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION-COUNTY FINANCES-APPORTIONMENT OF FUNDS.

1. Under the provisions of art. 7, sec. 15, of the constitution and C. S., sec. 3219, moneys in the county treasury at the end of the county fiscal year are to be transferred to the warrant redemption fund by resolution of the board of county commissioners only when they are not needed in the payment of current expenses for the purposes or funds for which they were collected.

2. The determination as to whether moneys remaining in the county treasury at the end of the fiscal year shall be deemed needed for current expenses, for the purposes or funds for which they were collected, or whether they shall be transferred to the warrant redemption fund, rests in the discretion of the board of county commissioners.

3. The purpose of art. 7, sec. 15 of the constitution is to put county finances on a cash basis, and the legislature is without authority to direct the transfer of moneys to the warrant redemption fund out of any fund at the end of the fiscal year, so long as such moneys are needed in such fund to meet the expenses chargeable thereto, in order that the fund may be kept on a cash basis; and only the surplus above the amount needed for current expenses may properly be transferred to the warrant redemption fund to take up outstanding unpaid warrants drawn upon other funds.

4. Under the provisions of C. S., secs. 1524 and 1529, a highway district is not entitled to have apportioned to it any part of such funds as are necessary to satisfy liabilities which the county has incurred prior to the organization of such highway district and which are properly chargeable to such funds.

5. Under the provisions of C. S., sec. 1529, which provides for the apportionment of county road and bridge fund levies made after the organization of a highway district, the percentages specified are to be paid respectively to the county and district immediately upon collection by the proper officers and the board of county commissioners is without lawful authority to apportion the same.

APPEAL from the District Court of the Eighth Judicial District, for Bonner County. Hon. John M. Flynn, Presiding Judge.

Appeal from an order of the board of county commissioners of Bonner county disallowing a claim of Laclede highway district for its proportionate share of the road and bridge fund. Judgment for defendant. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded, with instructions. Costs awarded to appellant.

G. H Martin, for Appellant.

Under the provisions of C. S., sec. 9444, the statutes of this state must be liberally construed, to effect their evident purpose and harmonize their various provisions. (Lamkin v. Sterling, 1 Idaho 92.)

And so as to give effect to each and every part thereof, if possible. (People v. Hunt, 1 Idaho 433.)

Statutes that pertain to the same subject matter should be construed together. (Noble v. Bragaw, 12 Idaho 265, 85 P. 903.)

The board had no right to deplete the funds, to a part of which the district was entitled, by the allowance and payment of claims which could not lawfully be payable out of the revenues derived from the 1917 levy. (Smith v. Broderick, 107 Cal. 644, 48 Am. St. 167, 40 P. 1033; Arthur v. City of Petaluma, 175 Cal. 216, 165 P. 698.)

Peter Johnson and Herman H. Taylor, for Respondent.

The taxes in controversy, collected on and after the second Monday of April, 1918, must be paid into the county treasury and apportioned to the county warrant redemption fund, and the district has no right to any share in that. (Const., secs. 15, 16, art. 7; C. S., secs. 3211, 3217, 3219; Peavy v. McCombs, 26 Idaho 143, 140 P. 965.)

These taxes would not thereafter come into such county road and bridge funds under C. S., sec. 1524.

BUDGE, J. McCarthy, Dunn and Lee, JJ., concur. RICE, C. J., Dissenting.

OPINION

BUDGE, J.

The appellant highway district was organized June 1, 1918. Thereafter the district sought to have the board of county commissioners of Bonner county, in which the district is situated, apportion to it moneys raised by the county road and bridge fund levies under the provisions of C. S., sec. 1524, and an apportionment was made. An appeal was taken from the order of the county commissioners making the apportionment to the district court. The entire matter was thereupon submitted de novo to the district court upon certain stipulated facts and other evidence adduced bearing upon the respective rights of the district and the county in the road and bridge fund levies not only for 1917 but for 1918. Findings of fact and conclusions of law were filed and a judgment entered decreeing the rights of the county and the district in the moneys raised by the respective levies. This appeal is from the judgment.

There is no material dispute as to the facts, and the only serious questions presented for our consideration are questions of law involving the interpretation and construction to be placed upon C. S., secs. 1524 and 1529, the former section providing a rule of apportionment of levies made for road and bridge purposes by the county prior to the organization of a highway district, and the latter section providing a rule of apportionment as to levies made after the organization of a highway district.

In order to interpret the foregoing sections, it will be necessary to construe and apply certain other sections not only of the compiled statutes, but of the constitution of this state, relating to revenue and taxation. It should be noted at the outset that while art. 7, sec. 1, of the constitution fixes the beginning of the fiscal year as the second Monday of January unless otherwise provided by law, the legislature has fixed the fiscal year for the conduct of county business to begin on the second Monday of April of each year. (C. S., secs. 3217, 3219; Peavy v. McCombs, 26 Idaho 143, 140 P. 965.)

The first error into which the trial court fell consisted in holding that all money in the county treasury at the end of the fiscal year and all moneys thereafter collected on the levy for the preceding year pass by operation of law into the warrant redemption fund. The constitutional provision, art. 7, sec. 15, is:

". . . . All moneys in the county treasury at the end of each fiscal year, not needed for current expenses, shall be transferred to such redemption fund."

Clearly, this provision implies that any moneys needed for current expenses do not necessarily, and by operation of law, have to be placed in the warrant redemption fund.

The sections of the Compiled Statutes which the legislature has enacted to carry into effect the foregoing provision of the constitution are as follows:

"3219. Warrant redemption fund: Apportionment from other funds. All taxes levied in any year for the county current expense fund, county road fund and county bridge fund and collected on or after the second Monday of April in the succeeding year and any tax levied for any purpose and which is no longer needed for such purpose when collected must be paid into the county treasury and apportioned to the county warrant redemption fund, except as otherwise provided by law. All money in the county treasury on the second Monday of April to the credit of the county current expense fund, county road fund, county bridge fund or any other fund which is no longer needed must be transferred to the county warrant redemption fund upon the books of the county auditor and county treasurer by resolution of the board of county commissioners entered upon the records of the proceedings."

"3220. Manner of transferring county funds. No transfer of money from one county fund to another county fund must be made upon the books of the county auditor and county treasurer unless the same is authorized and so ordered by resolution of the board of county commissioners entered upon the records of its proceedings and certified copies of such resolution filed in the office of the county auditor and county treasurer."

It will be observed that sec. 3219, supra, contemplates that the money which is not needed for the purposes for which it was collected is to be transferred to the warrant redemption fund by resolution of the board of county commissioners. Necessarily the duty of ascertaining what money in the treasury at the end of the fiscal year or thereafter collected out of the levy of the preceding year is needed must devolve upon someone, and by this section the legislature has committed that duty to the discretion of the board of county commissioners. If any doubt upon this point arises by reason of certain ambiguities in sec. 3219, it has been eliminated by the provisions of sec. 3220 that no transfer of the moneys must be made unless authorized and ordered by resolution of the board.

The only levy in this case which the provisions we have been discussing could affect is the 1917 levy, and as to that the board of county commissioners passed no resolution transferring any of the moneys to the warrant redemption fund. Viewing this situation in the light of the rule that the presumption is that public officers have done their duty according to law, the legitimate inference is that the board of county commissioners of Bonner county reached the conclusion that there was no money in the county treasury which was no longer needed, and therefore none which they were required to transfer to the warrant redemption fund.

Again the sole purpose of art. 7, sec. 15, of the constitution is to put the business of the county on a cash basis. Keeping this dominant thought in mind, it is a reasonable...