People ex rel. Dale v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 20 April 1916
• Docket Number: No. 10316.,10316.
• Citation: 272 Ill. 494,112 N.E. 344
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. DALE, County Collector, v. JACKSON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

272 Ill. 494

112 N.E. 344

PEOPLE ex rel. DALE, County Collector,

v.JACKSON.

No. 10316.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 20, 1916.

Appeal from Vermilion County Court; Lawrence T. Allen, Judge.

Proceeding by the People, on the relation of Thomas J. Dale, County Collector, against William J. Jackson, Receiver. Judgment overruling objections to certain taxes and ordering sale of defendant's property, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.H. M. Steely and H. M. Steely, Jr., both of Danville, for appellant.

John H. Lewman, State's Atty., of Danville (Acton & Acton and Rearick & Meeks, all of Danville, and G. A. Ray, of Rossville, and T. A. Graham, of Danville, of counsel), for appellee.

CARTER, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the county court of Vermilion county overruling objections to certain taxes and rendering judgment and order of sale against the property of appellant, receiver of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois and Eastern Illinois & St. Louis Railroad Companies.

Objections were made to the county tax as to the item for ‘public buildings, light, heat, and repairs, $12,000,’ on the ground that the levy was for several purposes and the amounts were not separately stated. The statute requiring the levy of a county tax for several purposes to state the amount for each purpose separately does not require the subdivision of items which are properly embraced within some general designation. This court has said that it is neither necessary nor practicable that each particular purpose for which the tax is levied be specifically stated. The statute must receive a reasonable and common-sense construction. People v. Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago Railway Co., 237 Ill. 312, 86 N. E. 721. In People v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 266 Ill. 196, 107 N. E. 222, an item ‘for repairs upon and care, support, and maintenance of courthouse, $4,000,’ was objected to on the ground that the purposes were not separately itemized. The court there held that the items were sufficiently specific. The words used there are no more specific than those here under consideration. In both, the purpose was the maintenance, repair, and care of public buildings. The trial court rightly overruled this objection.

A further objection was made to two items, ‘State's attorney's salary, $5,000,’ and ‘State's attorney's assistant, $2,100,’ because these two salaries were, under the law (except the part from the state), payable out of fees, fines, forfeitures, and penalties collected by the state's attorney's office, and only the deficit, if any, should be included in the tax levy. It was also objected that since $400 of the state's attorney's salary was payable by the state, the county had no right to levy a tax for that portion. This court has held that a levy might properly be made of an amount sufficient to make up an estimated deficiency in fees, fines, forfeitures, and penalties to pay the salary of a state's attorney and his assistants. People v. Toledo, St. Louis & Western Railroad Co., 265 Ill. 502, 107 N. E. 220;People v. Toledo, St. Louis & Western Railroad Co., 267 Ill. 142, 107 N. E. 879. While these salaries, under section 2 of the State's Attorney's Act of 1913 (Laws of 1913, p. 360), are a proper charge against the county, payable out of its general funds, that statute provides that all fees, fines, forfeitures, and penalties collected by the state's attorney should be paid into the county treasury, to be held as a special fund for the payment of the salary of that official and his assistants. The only amount that should be raised by taxation for the payment of such salaries is the deficiency, if any, between the amount of said fees, fines, forfeitures,and penalties so collected and the amount necessary for the payment of the salaries. The evidence shows that in previous years the state's attorney collected in such fees, fines, forfeitures, and penalties within $200 or $300 of an amount sufficient to pay such salaries. The county board has a reasonable discretion to determine in advance the amount that must be levied to meet such deficiency and furnish that portion of the salaries required to be raised by general taxation. People v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 266 Ill. 126, 107 N. E. 223;People v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Co., 261 Ill. 33, 103 N. E. 614. The county board in this case, however, did not exercise its judgment or discretion, but arbitrarily levied the full amount for the salaries of the state's attorney and his assistant, without deducting even the $400 payable by the state. Counsel for the people argue that the amount of the fees, fines, forfeitures, and penalties to be collected by the state's attorney was taken into consideration in determining the amount of the county tax levy, being deducted from the total of that levy. This is not in accordance with the statute. The law requires the levy to specify the amount levied for each purpose, creating out of the collections by the state's attorney's office a special fund for the payment of these salaries. The county board could only levy a tax, as to salaries of the state's attorney and his assistant, for an amount equal to the estimated deficiency in the collections of the state's attorney's office. The trial court should have sustained this objection.

The further objection is made that an item of $600 ‘for state's attorney's stenographer’ was improperly inxcludedin the levy. Said State's Attorney's Act of 1913 provides in section 2, among other things, that the special fund collected from fees, fines, forfeitures, and penalties shall be paid out and distributed as follows:

‘Out of said fund the salaries of the [state's] attorney and all assistant state's attorneys shall be paid, or so much thereof as said fund will meet, the balance of said salaries, if any, to be paid by said county as herein otherwise provided: And, further, provided, that on July first of each year, the county treasurer shall, if there remain in said fund after paying said salaries then due and lawful employés of said state's attorney's office and other legal expenses, of said state's attorney's office, and retaining a sum sufficient to pay one quarterly payment of said salaries, and [any] balance, pay over said balance to the county superintendent of schools of said county to be by him turned into and to become a part of the distributable school fund,’ etc. Laws of 1913, p. 360.

Before said State's Attorney's Act of 1913, just quoted from, became law, this court held in People v. Cincinnati, Lafayette & Chicago Railway Co., 247 Ill. 506, 93 N. E. 421, that there was no such officer as a county stenographer and no authority for the appointment of one, and that the salary of such officer could not be included in a levy of a county tax in the...