the next case our call of the docket this afternoon today tuesday the sixteenth two thousand and is case there one zero nine seven one one first american bank corporation versus one henry agenda number fourteen coun they paid their taxes under protest and so out on various reasons to get some of it back from the texan districts as permitted by section twenty three of the property tax code this particular appeal involves the construction of the meaning of section seven dash one seventy one b one of the pension code a portion of the one i mean a spoiled retirement  act in section one seventy one be a part of it talks about the appropriation and how it is to be made then in section seven days one seventy one b one the following language appears i misspelled the other than the school district may levy a tax which shell that exceed the amount appropriated for misspoke contribution on a less and a seed and theory saying that the collection process the extension the collection of payment process of the that would be  that time the revenue act of one nine hundred thirty nine but now the property tax code isn't grafted on this i'm a statute that includes that type of language whether it be vi america provisions or some other provision concerning the levy in section thirteen one which controls the levy under the downstate force reserve district act which says that this particular provisions do not apply to b or to levies for annuity in benefits which is exactly what the pension which is exactly what the i am ira statutes all about so there's no authority in the down state forest preserve district itself to levy for pensions you must find it somewhere else which is the pension code and that's that's where the i m f provision of the statute comes into effect ok right p f decided nine hundred fifty eight over fifty years ago and in that case the school district it was a school district case that involved a the scaling provisions of the crap case first of all held the the i and i are of statute even fifty years ago was a complete statutory enactment and being as complete statutory enactment the covers several different types of taxing districts which the i am i have statutes still does today that when you take advantage whether you are a school district or any other type of district of that type of statute belong to all types of tax and districts if you like one pick and choose whether it will be governed by the one i missed the retirement fund act or by its own livy provisions you end up giving a preference to particular the down state forest preserve district act it's interesting because it's interesting because this particular type of language is similar to a decision made in  forced the conclusion that there must be an appropriation before the levy is made when the new provisions that we were put into effect in the one nine hundred sixty s involving the appropriation ordinance and the living ordinance for going i missed the retirement fund and this restriction that you can't let me more than you appropriated  was put into the statute obviously the city of chicago case had been in effect for twenty years and i think that this type of language had received a  fairly settled meaning when you say you can't levy more than you've appropriated can't looking more than you've appropriated means that you must appropriate tell people how the calculation was made as to how much you're going to need for the left  the tax mayor and the taxpayers made an argument that the levee was actually for some out into the future tax year this court rejected that saying that he or school districts the levy should be for the fiscal year that show him that's what we're trying to get across in this particular case to the for the i am i have statute the levy should be for the fiscal year that you're in if you go to the down state forest preserve district there is something something else occurs you can levy before you even appropriate which is a very strange provision it's the only one that i can find but i don't think the down state they have to appropriate before they left some practical problem with the two of those working together yes and preclude there to to practical trick practical problems both of which tie into the main reason for having these types of restrictions the appellate court found that the purpose of these restrictions and it's the one thing they got right they found that the purpose of these restrictions was to prevent a district from raising money faster than is needed in this particular instance and the district is raising money faster than needs because it's living a year before the funds will actually be needed the second reason that i think it underlies all this and it but it's sort of silent is that levies for pensions are levies without a maximum rate limitation you can levy as much as you as you can as you can get you there is no there is no top limit the limit should be when you make your appropriation and you decide what type of money you have what type of money will become available and what type of levy you need that should be determinative of what your levy is in this particular instance so that you don't raise money faster from the taxpayers than is accumulate funds in an excess of what it needs until the next levy comes in the does that answer your question or not you may not answer the question not quite ok i think sends a notice of before the beginning of any calendar year first of all i'm a pro before the before the year starts they send a preliminary notice then in november if you're getting close to that which is  it's be making or your appropriation then there's a about the time you're going to be making your levy they send out a notice of a final notice of what your rate will be for the next timing problems here the only timing problem is the fact that this district in its general levy procedure must levy six or eight months prior to the beginning of its fiscal year before it's even calculated what types of money are going to be necessary to get it through that fiscal year which is similar to what the tax payer said was happening in the available when it's collected and turned over to the governing body this course always since the one nine hundred forty s has that you can become what is called a cash basis taxpayer or tech somebody i cash basis taxing body is a tax somebody that at the end of the year has a sufficient surplus on hand to get it to the first collections of the next year and therefore  can run surpluses and circuses do not matter until you get out to like it two times multiplier and at that point you can provisions for the collection you can and the any imo rough board says you can that also those those regulations are part of the record says that you can levy an amount sufficient to get you to the next correction in terms of a surplus and you you should be able to do that there's nothing wrong with that what this court has always said is that if you have surpluses the surplus has should be self correcting because that money should be taken into account of the next levy that you make and if you do that you should not be running over two times what this statute says is going to bring you down a little lower because you can't levy more than you appropriated and then your appropriation you can appropriate for them out to get out there where you where you think it is necessary for the next l come in so there's always a timing problem only because we're a year behind this quote is always said if you want to be a district you don't have to go to tax anticipation warrants you can collect a certain amount of funds so that you can get to the next taxing collection i don't know whether that answers the question but it seems with that rationale  if you started this year won and you appropriate one hundred thousand dollars for your i m r app and you have no balance on hand you have to levy two hundred thousand dollars so that you will be getting ahead and having a cash balance and or the appropriation for two thousand and six that doesn't get extended until two thousand and collected in two thousand and seven and you're saying carry a balance rather than levy before the beginning of the year as the downstate fars reserve district act allows them to do what i what i think i saw was included in the appropriation ordinance and then when you love me here i love being a sufficient amount to get you out as the float until the next money comes in so you have to levy more than you appropriate no you you you appropriated more to get you through the float menu levy the amount that you've appropriate you're clearly not going to spend that amount you're going to spend what is necessary to fund the i m r f there's that is correct and that is is as a practical matter this court has always said that you can operate on a care spaces and not sell the tech centers a patient wants which would be necessary under your example and there's nothing wrong with th because because let me explain when when you say that you love me to one hundred percent and you're going to spend one hundred percent of the money isn't going to come in for a while that would mean that you would have to sell to accent to speak in words to get yourself through that what out in the other what you did later you let me living more than you're actually going to spend for any particular appropriation year is not generally a big problem with this court and may please the court i'm paul mitchell representing the forest preserve district or du page county i wanted to address the things that were brought up to sanford you know but first i just wanted to emphasize that previously pri first monday in november that was amended to move it back so that the appropriation had to be done before or during the first quarter the district's first quarter  first so now you could theoretically approve your appropriation ordinance as late as september thirtieth which would be really possibly eleven months prior to how the previous statute  and the problem was i don't know what the intent of the legislature was when they approved the amendments but our intent in going to the legislature was it was very difficult to appropriate eight months prior to the beginning of the fiscal year in other words we really had to appropriate since that had to precede the levy we had to appropriate in october for a fiscal year that started a few months later in july and so what they actually did was allow us to move back are appropriate and it's to my knowledge there's been prior supreme court cases going back to the forty's that have said there is nothing magic about appropriating prior to you and your appropriation it has to do with what underlying statute each governmental body has and it's up to the legislature to determine what that however in the same case they refer to the fact that you have to go to the pension code for authority they mention in the same paragraph we are questioning that the only authority for a pension levy in the pension code what we're saying is you have to go outside the pension code to get some timing and procedure on how you handle your appropriations and your levies the i portion of the pension code in the compiled statute is fifty pages of small print nowhere does it have a a date when you have to levy there's no procedure there's no timing procedure that determination made when your argument is if procreation comes first well in this case i'm not doubting that that is a limitation so let's just say that we violated the statute so in the fall we leveed a hundred thousand for i am our after persists and then in the next summer we only appropriated ninety thousand dollars we would be violating that very requirement that the amount to levy can exceed the amount per procreated we're now the tax objector can come and they father takes objections in november right now so they would clearly be able to object to that tax you violated it's not like it's too late you can file your objection way after we did our levy and our appropriation it's a limitation and if i could and you mentioned housing the timing sequence i think that that if you listen to the construction of the of the object or you would have an absurd result because we would have to apparently  appropriate for i am r f purposes in the fall then we would do our tax levy in the fall for all public purposes and then in the next summer we were appropriate for all public purposes except the i purposes that we previously appropriate appropriated in the fall now it's hard to believe that that was the legislative intent that you can levy before you appropriate except for i am  f purposes and the amendment to the downstate forest preserve act didn't say oh you can move it back to the first quarter except for i am i have purposes it said you can move it back clearly for everything school district was doing just what the forest service doing now they had their levee in the fall and then they had or appropriation in this case in may for the same thing for a fiscal year that began in that that's a cash basis public body and there's nothing wrong with that and in fact they had levied prior to their appropriation and this court saw no problem with that  also i think i would like to talk about the but the wording in the pension code section seven days one seven one he i think was brought up has a provision that the the facts were different there they did say that we're going to interpret that language to put a comma after levy and by the way the kelly case that i could never find cited since one thousand forty one in any case but it's there i guess you can say it's on the books where they did is they without giving much reason they put a comma after levied so then the the phrase would read the texan shall be levied comma and collected in like manner with the other real estate taxes that would clearly mean that the in like manner would only modify the collected and not the levy but there's a big difference in our state should i stay a chewed actually has a comma and when i say i say it should i mean the pension code he has a comma after in like manner so unlike cali that statute says that the taxes shall be levied and collected in like manner comma with the other taxes of the municipality what that means to me is in like manner clearly modifies both levied and collected so i think there is a difference and when you're looking at the statutory construction you can just look at section seven days ron one seventy one b one and come about and look at this appropriated language you have to look at other portions of the statute and  in the same stay true to section he says it will be levied in appropriate in light manner what that means is they have to go outside the pension code and go to the down state forest preserve act to determine the procedure  let me look at my notes that's really all of the comments i had some others but i want to address your concerns and i'm here to answer questions but i think it's it's a complicated case million right yes so i used to tell us that the difference was made up by a surplus it can be made up by some plus and you also and i can't say that i have this this memorized this appropriation but i know from representing the first forest preserve district you can also have non tax generated revenue in other words we have appropriations that are more than the tax levy you can't levy any more than the the appropriations so once they do the tax levy they do have to to live with that amount i think is the suggestion that your party has is if appropriation came first you know what you appropriate it for the levy before they they appropriate but also mr rooney for instance representing tax objectors we have fun balance cases where you if you allow a fund for instance to get too high so you're over the two point zero factor you will lose a tax objection because you have too much money in that fund so every year it's self correcting because even if you somehow had a little too much if you started going over the limits you're going to be subject to the other fund valence type exceptions that mr rooney is very good at filing takes objections about so it's almost self correcting if you got ahead one year somehow you may fail face a tax objection but on top of it you would have those excess funds in the next year and it would be self correcting the explanation of the statutory change change down state forest reserve districts from a an entity that would appropriate first and levy second second the timing structure that mr mitchell gave you is exactly what the schools use now schools are jazz the year starts january first the appropriate are going to be for the first quarter of their  year and they levy in the question in the a t l cases which years that levy for in this court held that that levy is for the fiscal year they're already have and that anything else would be surplus to get them out i think is play and towards the end of his argument i think i even heard mr mitchell say that there is a limitation that you can't levy more than you propre in this particular case all the appropriations that were made during the fiscal year that this levy was made in care of by the prior levee ordinance this