Leonard v. Sch. Comm. of Springield

• Decision Date: 19 May 1922
• Parties: LEONARD et al. v. SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF CITY OF SPRINGIELD et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

241 Mass. 325

135 N.E. 459

LEONARD et al.

v.SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF CITY OF SPRINGIELD et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

May 19, 1922.

Case Reserved from Supreme Judicial Court, Hampden County.

Suit by Edwin F. Leonard and others against the School Committee of the City of Springfield and others. Reserved by a single justice on the bill, answer, and agreed statement of facts, so far as material, for the determination of the full court. Petition dismissed.

The purpose of the suit was to enjoin the school committee and its members and their successors in office from diverting sums from the purposes for which they were severally appropriated and from expending or attempting to expend them for any other purpose. It was alleged that the school committee proposed and threatened to divert funds appropriated by the budget for other specific purposes and apply them to the payment of proposed increases in teachers' salaries.Josiah Dearborn and Alfred C. Fairbanks, both of Springfield, for plaintiffs.

Elisha H. Brewster and Wayland V. James, both of Springfield, for defendants.

RUGG, C. J.

This is a suit in equity by the mayor and more than 10 other taxpayers of the city of Springfield against the school committee, auditor and treasurer of that city. The object of the suit is to restrain the school committee from diverting money of the city from particular school purposes to which it was appropriated in the budget of 1921, as adopted by the city council, and devoting it to other school purposes included within general headings of the budget.

The relevant facts are that, in response to request by the mayor of Springfield, the school committee seasonably submitted estimates for expenses of the public schools, which, amongst numerous other matters, included an increase in the compensationto be paid many teachers, as well as salaries of additional teachers. The mayor in his budget as transmitted to the city council named a sum smaller than that asked by the school committee, intending to include salaries of additional teachers at the rate previously fixed by the school committee, but intending not to make provision for increases in salaries beyond those arising under general rules established by the school committee. The estimate transmitted by the school committee to the mayor and the budget submitted by the mayor to the city council were arranged under fifteen main headings, so far as the present controversy is concerned. The city council failing to approve or disapprove any items in the budget within 60 days, it became operative as the city's budget under the law. Thereafter the school committee, in order to provide money for the increases in salaries upon which they had determined and for which they had asked, but which the mayor had refused to include in the budget, voted to eliminate ‘Summer Schools,’ which was one heading or item in the budget, to discontinue 10 out of a larger number of kindergarten schools, thereby diminishing by several thousand dollars the amount required to maintain ‘Kindergartens,’ another separate heading or item in the budget, and to curtail expenses in other schools constituting distinct headings or items in the budget. The result of the several votes of the school committee was not to exceed the total appropriation for schools but to change the application of some of the items in the budget.

The precise question to be decided is whether the school committee has power thus to carry out its policy as to the management of the school system or whether it is bound by the action of the mayor and city council to the items set forth in the budget without power to modify or change them in any substantial particular. That question concerns the relative powers and duties of the mayor and city council on the one side and of the school committee on the other side under the provisions of law relative to the budget as applied to the administration of the public school system. The governing statutes are G. L. c. 44, relating to ‘Municipal Finance,’ G. L. c. 71, relating to ‘Public Schools,’ and the city charter of Springfield concerning the school committee. The crucial provision of G. L. c. 44, is section 32, which, omitting its exceptions and quoting only parts pertinent to the form of city government established by the charter of Springfield, is in these words:

‘Within sixty days after the annual organization of the city government * * * the mayor * * * shall submit to the city council the annual budget of the current expenses of the city. * * * The budget shall consist of an itemized and detailed statement of the money required, and the city council, by a majority vote, shall make such appropriations in detail, clearly specifying the amount to be expended for each particular purpose; but the budget shall not be in such detail as to fix specific salaries of employees under the direction of boards elected by the people, other than the city council. The city council may reduce or reject any item, but, without the approval of the mayor * * * shall not increase any item in or the total of a budget, not add any item thereto. * * * The city officials, when so requested by the mayor, shall submit to him forthwith in such detail as he may require estimates for the next fiscal year of the expenditures of their departments or offices under their charge, which shall be transmitted to the city council. * * * If the council fails to approve or disapprove any item in the budget, as submitted by the mayor, * * * within sixty days after its receipt thereof, such item shall, without any council action, become a part of the budget for the year, and the sum named shall be available for the purpose designated. * * *’

The charter of the city of Springfield provides that the--

‘school committee shall have the care and superintendence of the public schools, and shall have all the powers, and perform all the duties of town school committees.’ St. 1852, c. 94, § 11.

The school committees of cities and towns as enacted by G. L. c. 71, § 37, ‘shall have the general charge of all the public schools,’ and, by section 38, ‘shall elect and contract with the teachers of the public schools.’

[1] The slight verbal changes made in these sections of the General Laws, as compared with corresponding sections of earlier statutes, wrought no alteration in meaning and did not modify the pre-existing law. Main v. County of Plymouth, 223 Mass. 66, 69, 111 N. E. 694;Com. v. Kozlowsky, 238 Mass. 379, 387, 131 N. E. 207.

It was said in 1846 by Chief Justice Shaw in Cushing v. Newburyport, 10 Metc. 508 at page 511:

‘The establishment of schools for the education, to some extent at least, of all the children of the whole people is not the result of any recent enactment; it is not the growth even of our present constitutional government, or the provincial government which preceded it, but extends back two hundred years, to the early settlement of the colony. Indeed the establishment of popular schools as understood to have been one of the objects for which powers were conferred on certain associations of persons living together in townships, enabling them to regulate and manage certain prudential concerns in which they had a common interest.’

The policy of the commonwealth from early times has been to establish a board elected directly by the people separate from other governing boards of the several municipalities and to place the control of the public schools within the jurisdiction of that body unhampered as to details of administration and not subject to review by any other board or tribunal as to acts performed in good faith.

The general statutory provisions as to the powers of the school committee, to which reference has been made, have been in substance the same for many years. They had been interpreted by numerous decisions and had acquired a well-settled meaning long before the enactment of the law providing for a budget. Without reviewing these decisions one by one, it is enough to state summarily their essential conclusions.

[2][3][4] The school committee is an independent body, entrusteed 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...