there may be a certain equitable unfairness to those who contract with the government but you're on notice that i think judge florida raises a good question it at the bottom you know even given this contract i'm not sure that we can simply over going to school boards he say you have to appropriate the us of the maybe that kind of case where the terms of a contract permit us to simply order a school board appropriation but that's an intrusion of sorts into a local government's orly process and i would want to see problems with the contractual language and with the way the contract was submitted and and with what was laid out in the july website  and the rest and you take the easy go singly or in combination i'm just not sure that they rise to the level of justification of requir shop the board appropriated funds to that why don't so whether they have to or not it did so i take your point on that and i recognize that it's just the only thing that's paid for in that line i know i that and then and the contract price each year was eighty five thousand and eighty five dollars so if there was enough money in the line item allocation to pay off yes there was yes and i kind fact when there wasn't tw but and you just told me you don't know what was in fact going to be funded from that line item i don't know what was going to be funded but everything the borders pointed to are items that you know so nothing about special education teacher so one of the one of the difficulties here i thank you is if we were rooted in your favor whether we would be opening the door to having subordinate school officials or school superintendents or going out and contracting beyond their designated authority  and all of the school boards have distinct limits so most of them have distinct limits on what the school administration what on what fines the school administration can com appears on its face this contract appears to exceed those fun unless you start chopping it up period of years committing fines far in excess of what the school board intended their authority to be and i'm concerned that this will throw local school board funding into some state of confusion and that's the the difficulty that i i have for this is it seems in a number of ways both in the way of things were submitted and also in terms of the  school superintendents authority it seems to me to pose some danger to the orderly orderly process that we would ideally wish school district financing to be that's that's the difficulty i don't want to throw local school financing into a greater state of confusion than i presently is so i'd say a couple things one if the north of the legislature wanted to have a statue that limited the amount to be delegated that limit the authority a superintendent center contract to could do so but but to i chaos it's there there is inherently a higher bar when you're talking about a public and only but north carolina has allowed can i ask you to spend a lot of time on the rd basis and there were three bases here the placement of that grass or picket on the purchase order rather than the order form invalidates the payment and there's no case on that all case now all we have is the statute you have the statute right  without satisfy the statute allows you to put it on the purchase order or if there is no written contract but it was to put in contact here and it doesn't say you can then attach it to the preorder porn you supposed to be touching him to do it but i would say attaching the purchase order to the order form letter what accomplish that you know if i could tell the maryland legislature that there are a lot of other ways they could accomplish what they say in stat three separate and independent grounds as this court has recognized in the previous art contract law and the terms of the contract we contend and i don't believe that a false council has disputed that the law governing the authority of the north carolina school board must be a north carolina l from both in the way you are submitted the form in which you submitted and also of the monetary limits on the superintendent's authority to contractors that matter whether the source of  there are multiple sources of of law for the way of his school boards can proceed misjudged or points out one of them's in this case and there could be additional sources of law or could be decision or law from the north carolina courts or can be a north legislative statues that can be school board rules and regulations so who does it does it where the carolina state law yes your honor it's not a big it's not a question of this particular school board this school this is the state law allows a school board to delegate authority she said in some instances school superintendents and or some circumstances but not related to this case it's not related to who has to contract a school board could delegate a higher limit to its superintendent or a lower limit to it superintendent that would be a matter of public within the framework of state law that's correct your honor i would say to judge floyd's question that big contract law between north carolina and virginia is very similar and so because  page twelve cited it in great length to north carolina hey says we replied with north carolina cases virginia cases as to the question of contract law that leave are the ones that are five but i think that the decision comes out the the contract resign actually a three year contract for two hundred and fifty nine thousand dollars and why didn't you why would you have us look at it in terms of the two hundred and fifty school board or a very large school board for a very long time for a very substantial exactly of type of money and and to commit the school board to large sums of money you know over a long period of time which would depriv flexibility just can't be the intentional the meaning of that limitation element and in fact there's no ambiguity in the policy the language says that the superintendent or designee is authorized to enter in it was right for in year one and there was so many would have been paid for in your two if they had done the proper or maybe it but i guess it would have been if they had signed if they put this for me in the correct place right if the prion a certificate had been on the face of the order form which is the document that is trying that they're attempting to enforce right then it would have been a valid contract write the purchase order was not a part of the contract creo auditing is a process that occurs before the money is that you cannot pre op it before the money is obligated when you do a purchase order several days late and so but for that mistake two years of this three year contract would have been and i don't know that there's any real dispute about the thirty year well they even area out there you know the contract was terminated by the board according to its terms prior to any services being provided under your two or three of the contract right but if correctly if it had been a fixed correctly and you know timely manner then would you should the board be still be saying there was no contract no go that's all i was saying and so that contract would have been a valid three year covered three years k twelve is attempting to enforce years two and three dollars and the comparison county case that we cited is all of that land point with this they are the county determined that he did not have money to appropriate for subsequent years a contract they terminated the contract and then argue that there was no pre auth certificate and therefore it was an invalid contract and the court and the plaintiffs argue that order form for thirty three years subscription will a purchase order was issued and sent to the finance department for payment for your what and then when the board and that was never and it has to be considered as a unitary whole and if you consider it as it your terry hole it exceeds the school superintendents a was also not presented properly the contract as a whole was not presented properly to the school yes your honor there are there are two reasons why the contract is invalid number one it did not to be the type of officer who cites for a parent authority applied against public officials in north carolina involve cases where the entity was either aware of a real life the the mistake or the the misses application of law and rigged a benefit and the courts apply unjust enrichment theory when the money had already been paid for services rendered or in another case where there was a willful misleading  carolina all all of the actions of a board of education are taken in public or a matter of public record all policies of the board of education are matters of public record so this isn't as though there were some private corporation that had a where was this  july website of may so the policies are always on the board of education's website there's been some there was an issue raised about the earlier version of the policy there is no material difference  between those two versions of the policy where is the ninety thousand dollars of superintendent of party is where we're where we're going why would one find that in the board's policies that are posted on the board's website and we produced that policy  appendix it oh i'm sorry in the joint append and i'm not sure that was the question but that it isn't worth knowing page fifty eight and page two of five ok that would  have been information that a a corporate entity attempting to contract with the board of education could easily have found policies as for the policies made itself where policies i think that the standard of her ordinarily crude person would apply in that case and they fall simply didn't take the due diligence to make sure that they were contracting with an entity or with a official that had the authority they they point back to the previous contract signed by a previous superintendent but in that case there was it was a different term and in fact there was this word distinct one year contracts it was a renewable you could renew after one year that's not the case here where they're attempting to enforce it three year contract and the last basis or i think the core of this district court's correct decision is that there was simply a lack of funding the boards of education do not have the ability to tax and raise money on their own boards or ballot by the county commissioners providing operating funds and in this case the commissions provided less money than the board of education asked for while th and increased there were other obligations that the board was bound to carry out and in the education that students and and contracted services is a very broad category and this one so but there's contract had stayed the same and the need and increased we would know it would we i mean do we have in other words do we have some sort of i understand your argument but do we have either in their deposition or somewhere else a statement that they didn't have there wasn't money they didn't have money for this or was it just i understand there's testimony that needs to increase chairs test positive increased reserve some time for revival just assume for purposes of the argument here that they were on the website i don't think that that's the finot if that's what i was i would thought that was your position so i wasn't sure why  i point to there are several north carolina cases in which amounts much greater than this were of hell you know you have your leavers wake county where that be commissioner went into a appropriation subject to cancellation without penalty or funds not appropriated by our client or otherwise not available wasn't the school board room district trying to protect itself against the inevitable fluctuations that come in school board appropriations maybe the focus is broader than think in north carolina our school boards don't have the authority to make up any kind of shortfall through taxation and so given the limitations on school board or  board would result in a shortfall and that the school board to maintain the flexibility to devote what remaining funds it has to fifteen or salaries my time is up m