Sweetwater County Planning Committee for Organization of School Districts v. Hinkle

• Decision Date: 14 December 1971
• Docket Number: No. 3998,3998
• Citation: Sweetwater County Planning Committee for Organization of School Districts v. Hinkle, 491 P.2d 1234 (Wyo. 1971)
• Parties: SWEETWATER COUNTY PLANNING COMMITTEE FOR the ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS, Appellant (Intervenor beolw), v. Leonard HINKLE et al., Appellees (Appellants below).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 1234

491 P.2d 1234

SWEETWATER COUNTY PLANNING COMMITTEE FOR the ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS, Appellant (Intervenorbeolw), v.Leonard HINKLE et al., Appellees (Appellants below).

No. 3998.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Dec. 14, 1971.

Robert H. Johnson, Rock springs, for appellant.

John A. MacPherson and T. Michael Golden, Rawlins, for appellees.

Before McINTYRE, C. J., and PARKER, McEWAN, and GRAY, JJ.

McINTYRE, Chief Justice.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Wyoming School District Organization Law of 1969, the county committee of Sweetwater County(county planning committee for the organization of school districts) held a series of meetings throughout Sweetwater County in connection with the formation of unified school districts.Negotiations were also entered into with the county committee of Carbon County.

The plan finally adopted for Sweetwater County by its county committee was for three separate unified school districts.According to the plan, School DistrictNo. 25(Bairoil) was to be joined with areas which included Rock Springs and Wamsutter and made into unified DistrictNo. 1(new).School administrators and citizens of the Bairoil area consistently opposed joinder of the Bairoil district with any Sweetwater County school district.

When the Sweetwater plan was submitted to the state committee (state committee for organization), that committee recommended the Carbon County and Sweetwater County committees meet and attempt to work out a cooperative arrangement with respect to the Bairoil school and students.This was done and the Sweetwater plan was modified to provide that the new unified DistrictNo. 1 would contract with the Rawlins school system.Under such contract, DistrictNo. 1 would pay the actual cost to the Rawlins system to run the Bairoil school system.The actual cost figure for the first year was to be $208,000.

The state committee ultimately approved the modified plan.However, citizens and taxpayers of the original Bairoil district appealed to the district court from the approval decision of the state committee.That court held Bairoil had not been included in the organization of unified DistrictNo. 1 as a part of any efficient administrative unit, with primary consideration to the education, convenience and welfare of the children.

The court reasoned that the contractual arrangement between the two county committees was not efficient or practical because there was no assurance school administrators charged with the responsibility of educating Bairoil students could or would do so for the figure agreed upon.Also, future boards of the two districts involved would not be bound and there would be continual haggling over the amount to be paid for the education of Bairoil students.

The court stated a satisfactory solution would possibly be that the Bairoil district should be a part of the adjoining Carbon County district which includes Rawlins.The court concluded, the Sweetwater committee was arbitrary in refusing to consider the full joinder of Bairoil with the Rawlins district.The case was remanded by the district court to the state committee with instructions to reject the plan of organization devised by the county committee of Sweetwater County.

At the district court level, the Sweetwater county committee was permitted to intervene.It has brought the matter to us by appeal from the judgment of the district court.

The controversy in this case centers around the fact that Bairoil is an isolated school district located in the northeastern corner of Sweetwater County.It is set apart from the rest of the county because of a lack of roads, geographical barriers and distances to Sweetwater County population centers.It is about 40 miles from Rawlins and 150 miles from Rock Springs.The only feasible route to Rock Springs is through Rawlins.Rawlins is the trade center of the Bairoil community.

With only minimal exceptions, all of the Bairoil grade school graduates have attended Rawlins High School.The curriculum of the Bairoil grade schools is based on the curriculum of the Rawlins system, because the students go into the Rawlins high school system.The Rawlins school system also furnishes to Bairoil other equcational services, such as psychologist, health care, and the like.In addition, Bairoil carries on its athletic events with schools in Rawlins, Baggs, Medicine Bow and some schools in Fremont and Natrona Counties which are closer than Rock Springs.

In the past there has been very little, if any, association with the schools of Sweetwater County.The Bairoil school system has in the past paid the Carbon County system for educational services.The trial judge considered that the Bairoil district would not be benefited by being consolidated with other Sweetwater County districts because substantially all educational services would be supplied by the adjoining district in Carbon County, even though paid for by the new unified district in Sweetwater County.

Districts adjacent to the Bairoil district are naturally eager to be consolidated with Bairoil because of the assessed valuation of property within the Bairoil district.The assessed valuation of such district is $16,997,373.00, amounting to $320,705 per pupil.This is accounted for because of its location in the Lost Soldier oil field.Bairoil has the highest valuation per student in Sweetwater County, and for that matter in the entire state.¹

We cannot avoid being aware that the matter before us has been and is difficult of solution because a tax advantage is to be had be being in a school district where the assessed valuation is high.If ad valorem taxes for school purposes were equalized throughout the state, as required by Art. 1 § 28, Wyoming Constitution, and by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ²cases such as the one being dealt with would not arise.

The time has come when we can no longer ignore inequalities throughout our state in the matter of taxation for school purposes.Taking judicial notice of official reports of the state department of education, which we are privileged to do, we are made aware that this inequality ranges from a situation where in the Bairoil district a levy of one mill will bring in $351 per pupil, while in the Star Valley district (Lincoln County) a levy of one mill will bring in $4.70 per pupil.

We are attaching as an appendix to this opinion a Property Tax Report for Unified School Districts (1971-1972), prepared by Management Information Services, Planning and Development Division, State Department of Education.The primary concern of this report is to provide information relating to property valustion and the taxes assessed on property for school revenues.Facts and figures contained in this report show much disparity in shcool ad valorem taxes which are being paid by taxpayers throughout the state.

In will be seen from these figures that affluent districts can provide a high quality education for their children while paying lower taxes.Poorer districts, by contrast, do not have that advantage.The inequality is obvious.

Sweetwater County is large in area, containing in excess of 10,000 square miles.In some of the areas the principal source of assessed valuation is from the estractive mineral industry.New developments are taking place, and some areas which previously produced have or will become depleted.Thus, there is a constant changing of assessed valuations for given areas.Even if the pupil assessed valuations were fairly well equalized within a multipledistrict county, it could-and probably would-materially change from year to year, which would require a constant changing or even gerrymandering of properties from one district to another.

Needed Legislation

We see no manner in which ad valorem taxes for school purposes can be made equal and uniform unless it is done on a state-wide basis.In other words, all property owners within the state should be required to pay the same total mill levy for school purposes.

Act. 15, § 17, Wyoming Constitution, provides there shall be levied each year in each county a tax of 12 mills on the dollar for the support and maintenance of public schools.This tax is collected by the county treasurer and disbursed among the school districts 'within the county.'Inasmuch as this levy is mandatory and a constitutional requirement, it will necessarily continue.

Art. 15, § 15, Wyoming Constitution, authorizes a state tax not exceeding six mills on the dollar to be levied each year for support of public schools in the state.There is no need for any change in what is being done with respect to the levy of this tax and the distribution of funds derived from such levy.

While we do not mean to encroach upon prerogatives of the legislature, we think it might be helpful if we would suggest a possible method by which equal and uniform taxes can be accomplished for school purposes.In doing so, we exclude from our consideration funds derived from the sixmill state levy; funds from motor vehicle fees; funds from fines and forfeitures; Forest Reserve funds; Land Income funds; Taylor Grazing funds; and all State or Federal funds or other funds not derived from ad valorem taxes levied at the county level.

The legislature would need to provide for determination of the total amount of school funds which must be derived from ad valorem taxes at the county level, exclusive of funds listed in the preceding paragraph, for each classroom unit as defined in § 21.1-228, W.S.1957, 1971 Cum.Supp.When the amount per classroom unit is multiplied by the number of classroom units in the state, a total for the state(of the funds we are considering) will be known.It can then be determined each year what mill levy would be necessary, when applied to all assessed property in the state, to produce the total for the state(of the funds we are considering).

Each year the state...