-, . . 

TEICATTORNEY GENERAL 

OFTEXAS 

Honorable Tom C. King 

State Auditor and Bfficiency Expert 

Austin, Texas 

Dear Sir: Opinion No. O-953 

lie: Appropriation from Dental 

Registration Fund for Dental 

Board. 

This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 24, 1939, wherein 

you request the opinion of this department upon the questions quoted 

below. 

It appears from your letter that in Chapter 24.4, page 606, Acts of the 

Forty-fourth Legislature, Regular Session, 1935, there was set up the 

State Board of Dental Examiners, and the Legislature therein provided that 

the'annual registration fees collected by said Board shotid be placed 

in the State Treasury to the credit of e special fund to be known as 

the "Dental Registration Fund'?. This Act provides that all salaries and 

expenses of administering the ,Act shall be paid from this special fund. 

The Act specifically provides: 

" . . . all expenditures from this 'fund shall be on order of 

the State Board of Dental Examiners on warrants issued by the 

State Comptroller for the purposes and in the amounts fixed in 

the general appropriation bills." 

The Departmental Appropriations Bill passed by the Forty-fifth Legislature 

appropriated to the Board of Dsntal Examiners certain sums of money for 

designated purposes, tota~ling $ 6,755.W per annum. By rider to this 

appropriation, it was directed that $200.00 per yeer be transferred from 

the Dental Registration Fund to the General Revenue Fund to pay for 

governmental services. 

The First Called Session of the Forty-Fifth Legislature passed an Act 

(Chapter 4, p. 1744), the pertinent provisions of which are as follows: 

"Section 3, There Is hereby appropriated for the use of the 

State Dental Board all fees collected under Senate Bill No. 10, 

passed by the Forty-fourth tiglslature, said fees to be used 

for the maintenance and expense of the Dental Board from May 

15, 1937, to Auguet 31, 1937, 
Honorable Tom C. King, Page 2 o-953 

"All balances remaining in said fund on August 31, 1937, are 

hereby appropriated for the use of the Dental Board for the 

biennium beginning August 31, 1937, and ending August 31, 1939." 

This Act was approved and became effective July 12, 1937. 

On this statement of facts you ask the following questions: 

"(1) Is the.Act of the called session in contravention of 

the Constitutional provision that no appropriation may be 

made for a longer term than two years? 

"(2) If so, is the Act void abinitio, or only as to the 

period between July 12, 1939, and August 31, 1939? 

"(3) Which of these Acts (the general appropriation bill 

or the Act of the called session) is controlling; or, are 

both effective so that the latter is supplementary to and 

cumulative of the former?" 

In your letter it is stated that the Forty-fifth Legislature, in making 

the appropriation to the Board of Dental Examiners in the Departmental 

Appropriations Bill, did not specify the fund from which such appropriations could be paid. Your attention is directed to the fact thst 

by Section 3 of the General Rider appended to the Departmental 

Appropriations Bill passed by the Forty-fifth Legislature, (General 

and Special Laws, Forty-fifth Legislature, Regular Session, 1937, p. 

l&91), the Legislature, by the language therein used, effectively directed 

that the items appropriated in that Bill for the use and benefit of the 

Board of Dental Examiners should be paid from the Dental Registration 

Fund, instead of from the General Fund. This Rider reads as follows: 

"It is further provided that in the event the statutes of 

the State of Texas provide that any of the amounts, fees, 

or funds herein appropriated be paid out of local or special 

fees or funds, that the same be so paid out of said local 

or special fees and funds instead of being paid out of the 

General Revenue Fund. 

Since the Act creating the Board of Dental Examiners contemplates 

that the salaries and expenses of the administration of that Act should 

be paid out of the Dental Registration Fund, this Rider is applicable 

to the appropriation made for the Board of Dental Examiners by the 

Forty-fifth Legislature. 

You are advised that in our opinion, the Act passed by the First Called 

Session of the Forty-fifth Legislature makes two separate and distinct 

appropriations, one to endure for the period of time beginning May 15, 

1937, and ending August 31, 1937, and the other beginning August 31, 

1937, and ending August 31, 1939. The first appropriates all fees 
Honorable Tom C. King, Page 3 O-953 

collected under Senate Eo. 10 passed by the Forty-fourth Legislature, for 

the period mentioned in such appropriations, and the second appropriates 

only the balance remaining on hand in sdid fund on August 31, 1937. Since 

Article VIIK, Section 6, of.our Constitution provides only that " . . . 

nor shall any approprietion of money be made for a longer term than two 

years . . .", and neither of these two separate and distinct appropriations 

is for a period of time longer than two years, you are advised that it is 

our opinion that the constitutional provision referred to is not violated 

by the Act of the Called Session. 

The answer made to your first question renders it unnecessary to answer 

your second. 

In answering your third question, we direct your attention to the 

paragraph of the Rider appended,to the Departmental Appropriations Bill 

passed by the Forty-fifth Legislataure, which reads as follows: 

"(c) The appropriations herein provided are to be construed 

as the maximum sums to be appropriated to and for the several 

purposes named herein, and the amounts are intended to cover 

and shall cover the entire cost of the respective items, 

and the same shall not be supplemented from any other source; 

and no expenditures shall be made, nor shall any obligations 

be incurred, which, added to the actual expenditures, will 

exceed the amount herein appropriated for any of the purposes 

named. . ." (Ganeral and Special Laws, Forty-fifth Legislature, Regular Session, page 1489-1490),. 

We likewise direct your attention again to that portion of the Act 

creating the State Board of Dental Examiners, quoted above, which reeds 

88 follows: 

I# . . . all expenditures from this fund shall be on order 

of the State Board of Dental Examiners on warrants issued 

by the State Comptroller for the purposes and in the 

amounts fixed in the general appropriation bills. . ." 

It appears that the Legislature in the Oeneral Appropriation Bill for 

the fiscal biennium beginning August 31, 1937, provided the purposes 

and the amounts for which expenditures out of the Dental Registration 

Fund might be made by the State Board of Dental Exa,miners. There is 

nothing in that portion of the Act passed by the First Called Session 

of the Forty-fifth Legislature appropriating the balances remaining in 

the fund on August 31, 1937, which evidences the Legislative intent 

directly or indirectly to vary or change, insofar as such balances are 

concerned, the legislative policy announced by the provisions of the 

Departmental Appropriations Bill and by the provisions of the Act 

creating the Board of Dental Examiners, above quoted. There is no 

express repeal or modification of these provisions by the special Act 
Honorabel Tom C. King, Page 4 o-953 

. - .p 

referred to, and there is nothing which appears in the Act passed by 

the Forty-fifth Legislature at its First Called Session which may be made 

the basis for the application of the doctrine of repeal or modification 

by implication. 

You are therefore, advised that it is our opinion that it was intended 

by the Legislature that the balances remaiping in the Dental Registratia 

Fund on August 31, 1937, should be appropriated for the payment of those 

items of expense provided for the Board of Dental Registration in the 

Departmental Appropriations Bill passed by the Forty-fifth Legislature. 

It follows that we answer your third question, that the Departmental 

Appropriations Bill passed by the Forth-fifth Legislature controls the 

purposes and amounts for which the Dental Registration Board may 

expend the balances remaining in the Dental Registration Fund on August 

31, 1937, during the fiscal biennium ending August 31, 1939. 

Yours very truly, 

JWl!ORNEY Q!NERAL OF TEXAS 

a/ Richard W. Fairchild 

Bs 

Richard W. Fairchild 

Assistant 

RWF:FG/ldw 

APPROVED NOV. 6, 1939 

s/W. F. Moore 

FIRST ASSISTANT 

ATTORNEY GiXERAL 

APPROVED 

OPINION 

COMtcmTEE 

BY B. W. B. 

CHAIRMAN