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## TEICATTORNEY GENERAL OFTEXAS

Honorable Tom C. King State Auditor and Bfficiency Expert Austin, Texas
Dear Sir: OpinionNo. O-953 lie: Appropriation fromDental Registration Fund for Dental Board. This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 24, 1939,wherein you request the opinion of this departmentupon the questions quoted below.
It appears from your letter that in Chapter 24.4, page 606, Acts of the Forty-fourthLegislature,Regular Session, 1935, therewas set up the State Board of Dental Examiners, and the Legislature therein provided that the'annual registration fees collectedby said Board shotidbe placed in the State Treasury to the credit of e special fund to be known as the "DentalRegistrationFund'?. This Act provides that all salaries and expenses of administering the ,Actshallbe paid from this special fund. The Act specificallyprovides: "

. . .all expendituresfrom this 'fund shall be on order of the State Board of Dental Examiners on warrants issuedby the State Comptroller for the purposes and in the amounts fixed in the general appropriationbills." The DepartmentalAppropriationsBill passed by the Forty-fifth Legislature appropriated to the Board of Dsntal Examiners certain sums of money for designatedpurposes, tota~ling $ 6,755.W per annum. By rider to this appropriation, itwas directed that $200.00 per yeer be transferred from the Dental RegistrationFund to the GeneralRevenue Fund to pay for governmental services. The First Called Session of the Forty-FifthLegislature passed an Act (Chapter 4, p. 1744), the pertinentprovisions ofwhich 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-fourthtiglslature, said fees to be used for the maintenance and expense of the Dental Board from May 15, 1937, toAuguet 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 beginningAugust 31, 1937, and endingAugust 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 contraventionof the Constitutionalprovision that no appropriationmay 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 appropriationbill or theAct of the called session) is controlling;or, are both effective so that the latter is supplementaryto and cumulative of the former?"
In your letter it is stated that the Forty-fifth Legislature, in making the appropriationto theBoard of Dental Examiners in theDepartmental AppropriationsBill, did not specify the fund fromwhich such appropriations couldbe paid. Your attention is directed to the fact thst by Section 3 of the GeneralRider appended to the Departmental AppropriationsBill 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, effectivelydirected that the items appropriated in that Bill for the use and benefit of the Board of Dental Examiners shouldbe paid from the DentalRegistration Fund, instead of from the GeneralFund. 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 appropriatedbe paid out of local or special fees or funds, that the samebe so paid out of said local or special fees and funds instead of being paid out of the GeneralRevenue Fund. Since the Act creating the Board of Dental Examiners contemplates that the salaries and expenses of the administrationof that Act should be paid out of the Dental RegistrationFund, this Rider is applicable to the appropriationmade for the Board ofDental Examiners by the Forty-fifth Legislature.
You are advised that in our opinion, theAct passed by the First Called Session of the Forty-fifth Legislaturemakes two separate and distinct appropriations,one to endure for the period of timebeginningMay 15, 1937, and ending August 31, 1937, and the otherbeginning August 31, 1937, and endingAugust 31, 1939. The first appropriatesall feesHonorable 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.ourConstitutionprovides 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 constitutionalprovision 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 directyour attention to the paragraph of the Rider appended,to the DepartmentalAppropriationsBill passed by theForty-fifth Legislataure,which reads as follows: "(c) The appropriationsherein provided are to be construed as themaximum sums to be appropriatedto 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 shallbe 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.
. ." (Ganeraland Special Laws, Forty-fifth Legislature, Regular Session, page 1489-1490),.
We likewise directyour attention again to that portion of the Act creating the State Board of Dental Examiners, quoted above,which reeds 88 follows: I#

. . .all expendituresfrom this fund shall be on order of the State Board of Dental Examiners onwarrants issued by the State Comptroller for the purposes and in the amounts fixed in the general appropriationbills.
. ."
It appears that the Legislature in the OeneralAppropriation 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 theAct passedby theFirst Called Session of the Forty-fifth Legislature appropriatingthe balances remaining in the fund on August 31, 1937,which evidences the Legislative intent directly or indirectly to vary or change, insofaras such balances are concerned,the legislativepolicy announcedby the provisions of the DepartmentalAppropriations Bill and by the provisions of theAct creating the Board of Dental Examiners, above quoted. There is no express repeal or modification of these provisionsby the special ActHonorabel Tom C. King, Page 4 o-953 . - .p

referred to, and there is nothingwhich appears in the Act passed by the Forty-fifth Legislatureat its First Called Sessionwhich may be made the basis for the applicationof the doctrine of repeal or modification by implication.
You are therefore,advised that it is our opinion that itwas intended by the Legislature that the balances remaiping in the Dental Registratia Fund on August 31, 1937, shouldbe appropriatedfor the payment of those items of expense provided for the Board of Dental Registration in the DepartmentalAppropriationsBill passed by the Forty-fifth Legislature. It follows thatwe answer your third question, that the Departmental Appropriations Bill passed by theForth-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 fiscalbiennium endingAugust 31, 1939.
Yours very truly, JWl!ORNEY

Q!NERALOF TEXAS a/ Richard W. Fairchild

Bs RichardW. 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