Title: State ex rel. Macy v. Board of County Commissioners
Citation: 1999 OK 53, 70OBJ1820, 986 P.2d 1130
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: June 1, 1999

State ex rel. Macy v. Board of County Commissioners Annotate this Case State ex rel. Macy v. Board of County Commissioners 1999 OK 53 986 P.2d 1130 70 OBJ 1820 Case Number: 89496 Decided: 06/01/1999 Mandate Issued: 07/01/1999 Supreme Court of Oklahoma STATE OF OKLAHOMA, EX REL. ROBERT H. MACY, DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR THE SEVENTH PROSECUTORIAL DISTRICT, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY OF OKLAHOMA, STATE OF OKLAHOMA, Defendant/Appellant. [986 P.2d 1132] ON APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT, OKLAHOMA COUNTY; Donald L. Worthington, trial judge (sitting by designation). ¶0 In an action brought by the district attorney (with a related counterclaim pressed by the board of county commissioners) for a declaration, to be made in light of Art. 23 § 10, Okl. Const., of rights and principles that govern these officials' interaction while functioning under the County Budget Act THE TRIAL COURT'S SUMMARY JUDGMENT IS AFFIRMED. Alan E. Synar, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for the Appellant Robert H. Macy and Robert L. Mitchell, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for the Appellee OPALA, J. ¶1 The dispositive issues on appeal are: [1] Were the actions taken by the Board of County Commissioners of Oklahoma County [commissioners] effective to change the county's 1996-1997 fiscal-year budget (a) through the June 24, 1996 resolution disapproving a salary supplement for the district attorney (and his assistants) or (b) through the January 21, 1997 resolution that confined claims for the budgeted salary supplement to only the first half of the fiscal year? and [2] Is a county-funded salary supplement for the district attorney - initially authorized by the [986 P.2d 1133] terms of I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION ¶2 This is a controversy between Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma County [DA or Macy], and the county commissioners over the latter's refusal to approve payment of the DA's budgeted salary supplement (for him and his assistants) during the 1996-1997 fiscal year. ¶3 The DA submitted to the Oklahoma County Budget Board [budget board] an estimate of office needs for fiscal-year 1996-1997, which included $106,244.46 The Declaratory Judgment Action ¶4 The DA pressed at nisi prius for a judicial declaration that (a) because sufficient funds were available for payment, the commissioners were powerless to interfere post factum with the amount that stood appropriated for salary supplement in the budget board's approved county budget and (b) the amount of the supplement (reported by the budget board) became a part of the DA's salary by operation of law and came to be constitutionally frozen for the entire term of his office. The commissioners counterclaimed for the trial court to declare that ¶5 The trial court's summary relief to the DA (a) concluded that the commissioners may not deny payment of claims for DA's salary supplement so long as funds are available up to the appropriated amount and (b) declared the included supplement to be free from constitutional restraint. [986 P.2d 1135] II AUTHORITY OVER THE BUDGET WAS PLACED BEYOND THE REACH OF THE COMMISSIONERS WHEN THE BUDGET BOARD'S FUNCTION PASSED ON TO THE SOLE CONTROL OF THE EXCISE BOARD AND THEN THE PROCESS WAS CARRIED TO FINAL CONCLUSION WITHOUT ANY ANTECEDENT COMMISSIONERS' CHALLENGE TO THE DA SUPPLEMENT'S INCLUSION, EVEN THOUGH THE FINALLY APPROVED BUDGET WAS PLAINLY CONTRARY TO THE COMMISSIONERS' EARLIER VOTE (OF 24 JUNE 1996) AGAINST SALARY SUPPLEMENTS (FOR THE DA AND HIS ASSISTANTS) ¶6 This is a controversy over the extent of power the commissioners retained after delegating to the budget board their own budget-related functions. The County Budget Act gives absolutely no textual indication of how much authority over the budget is delegated or retained by the board of county commissioners. We can derive no help from the textual analysis of the Act. The question at hand presents a casus omissus. ¶7 Assuming, as we do solely for argument's sake, that the commissioners had the authority to affect the budget before it became final, the dispositive issue here is what legal effect, if any, the commissioners' June 24, 1996 and January 21, 1997 resolutions had on the critical appropriation14 that was in fact made for the DA's 1996-1997 salary supplement.15 Based on this record's contents, we accept the parties' admissions that (a) the budget board - in utter disregard of the June 24 resolution - did in fact include in its budget an appropriation that gave full funding to the DA's office for the entire requested fiscal-year salary supplement,16 and that (b) the budget passed on to the excise board where it was finally approved without any challenge from the commissioners.17 When filed with the excise board, the county budget constitutes an appropriation for each of the included items subject only to the excise board's final approval.18 The excise board's role at this terminal stage of the [986 P.2d 1136] process is (a) to examine the budget for conformity to the law19 and (b) if the budget will pass legal muster, to certify it as approved.20 A. The June 24, 1996 Resolution ¶8 The commissioners' June 24 resolution clearly became ineffective21 when the budget board's process22 had reached finality by ripening into an appropriation sans challenge from the commissioners. The responsibility to prevent the approved DA salary supplement from becoming final rested on the commissioners. The County Budget Act does not divest them - qua governing body of the county23 - of standing to challenge the budget board's refusal to act in conformity to their resolution. By allowing the budget to reach the terminal stage and thus to be transformed, without protest, into an appropriation,24 the commissioners' inaction permitted the budget board's will to prevail. It is the excise board's approval of the appropriation in contest that imparted to the supplement both its efficacy and finality. ¶9 The control over the county budget (1) passes ex lege from the budget board to the excise board when the conditions prescribed in 19 O.S.1991 §§ 1408-1413 are met, and (2) as soon as the provisions of 19 O.S.1991 §§ 1414-1416 are fulfilled, the budget is placed beyond the excise board's reach to become an appropriation. That appropriation, which at its final stage passed the excise board's scrutiny, must control over any discordant board of commissioners' resolutions which either preceded or followed the de jure budget's birth. For a detailed explanation of these critical stages, the reader is referred to the descriptive material in footnotes 22 and 24. B. The January 21, 1997 Resolution ¶10 The commissioners' January 21, 1997 resolution is as ineffectiveas that of 24 June 1996. It came too late to affect the [986 P.2d 1137] completed budget process, which by then stood transmuted by operation of law from a de facto into de jure appropriation. Whatever residue of budget authority the commissioners may claim to have retained under the County Budget Act, their exercise of that power, when interposed too late, cannot effectively interfere with a completed budget process. To allow that process to be undone by an act of the commissioners, taken after the terminal stage, would subject to utter chaos the entire fiscal function of the county. We will not assume that the county's decision to come under the budget act was ever intended to transform an otherwise stable and orderly process into a series of chaotic stages that lack orderly framework. In short, when as here, the budget is allowed to arrive at that terminal point at which it ripens - ex lege and sans challenge - into an effective appropriation, it is to be treated as having passed beyond the reach of the commissioners' authority. C. The Solution Tendered By The Author Of A Statement In Disagreement With The Analysis Offered By The Court's Opinion Would Subject The County Budgetary System To A Serious Constitutional Attack ¶11 The concurring-in-judgment statement would exclude the commissioners from standing as protestants before the excise board. That view is not only utterly inconsistent with the 19 O.S.1991 §1415's plain textual analysis, but would offend against the Art. 5 § 46, Okl.Const., uniformity-of-procedure mandate by injecting havoc into the orderly budget process.25 No Indicia Are Present of Legislative Intent to Discriminate Between Protesters Who Are Equally Affected By A Budget's Illegality ¶12 An excise board budget protest generally is limited to the presence of "any alleged illegality" in the county budget.26 Within the meaning of § 1415, the word "taxpayer" includes any governmental entity that has a patent interest in the county budget. If we failed to consider the commissioners as taxpayers with standing to protest, a large class of persons directly affected by the budget would be excluded from standing to challenge it. That result would clearly be contrary to the legislative intent. The legislature is not presumed to discriminate among persons equally affected by an event or transaction.27 Neither can this court deprive of standing anyone who has a patent interest in the county budget. The county commissioners would have standing to challenge an illegality in the budget as [986 P.2d 1138] Hohfeldian plaintiffs28 - persons with a legally cognizable interest at stake. Moreover, the term "taxpayer" is undefined in the County Budget Act.29 We cannot hence read into § 1415's text the intent to exclude a class - not explicitly singled out for that treatment - which is affected by the illegality in a like manner as those persons who pay taxes. ¶13 Today's pronouncement does not collide with the notion that only a taxpayer can complain against an ad valorem assessment.30 A § 1415 protest before the excise board against illegality is not an attack on an assessment, but rather on the legal correctness of the budget (or of one of its items). Like any other participant in the county budget process, the commissioners, though budget beneficiaries, have standing to assail any facial legal flaws. Unavailable to "tax consumers" are only protests against tax assessments.31 State Fundamental Law ¶14 Art. 5 § 46 mandates in absolute terms statewide procedural uniformity for an entire class of similarly situated persons or things as well as uniformity for regulating affairs of counties.32 The cited constitutional provision proscribes "special" laws that single out for different treatment less than an entire class of similarly situated persons or entities.33 Affording disparate procedural remedies for the removal of an illegality from the budget would offend this State's fundamental law. Tax consumers and tax beneficiaries are affected in a like manner by a county budget's illegality. Giving for the very same inquiry one remedy (of a § 1415 protest) to taxpayers only and quite a [986 P.2d 1139] different remedy (of mandamus) to tax consumers for the very same inquiry would create a procedural dichotomy that at once destroys the symmetry of Oklahoma's remedial regime and hence offends the § 46 uniformity-of-procedure mandate. For the sake and in the interest of advancing the public policy's protected goal of achieving certainty for the budget's finality, the two classes (taxpayers and tax consumers) cannot be viewed as permissibly discrete. ¶15 Tulsa Tribune Co. v. Okl. Horse Racing Com'n34 teaches that litigants who comprise a class interested in the subject matter must be accorded an identical remedy to vindicate the divergent rights in their interest. There, the legislature created an action for those who would seek a public document's release. The court treated as a single class all those persons with an interest in a public document's release as well as in the suppression of the release. Those who seek to prevent the budget from becoming final on the grounds of its illegality must all be treated alike as an indivisible class. While the commissioners qua consumers may have goals divergent from taxpayers, they must be accorded an equally effective remedy. In short, the excise board's authority to correct the final budget by revision must also be invocable by the commissioners in order to prevent the extended presence of that illegality which could have been removed by a taxpayer's protest. ¶16 When a statute - as § 1415 in this case - may be susceptible of more than one meaning, the court's duty is to give its text that construction which would save the legislation from facial absurdity35 as well as make it impervious to constitutional attack.36 This is the meaning we place on it today. III THE PROSCRIPTION IN ART. 23 § 10, OKL. CONST., DOES NOT IMPACT THE STATUTE AUTHORIZING SUPPLEMENTATION OF THE DA's SALARY ¶17 The DA urges that commissioners' act of refusal to approve payment of the budgeted salary supplement for the remainder of the fiscal year constitutes an unconstitutional attempt to alter the salary of an elected official during his term of office. We reject the tendered notion as contrary to law.37 The pertinent terms of Art. 23 § 10, Okl.Const., are: "Except wherein otherwise provided in this Constitution, in no case shall the salary or emoluments of any public official be changed after his election or appointment, or during his term of office, unless by operation of law enacted prior to such election or appointment; * * *" (emphasis supplied). The "unless" phrase in Art. 23 § 10 permits that change to occur in a public official's salary during his term of office which results from the operation of a statute enacted before that official's election. ¶18 The statute authorizing the county to supplement the DA's state salary (19 O.S.Supp.1996 § 215.30(C)(1))39 was enacted in 1990.40 It clearly contemplates salary supplement that is subject to change by the fiscal-year budgetary process. The statute's terms provide that the county "may" supplement the DA's salary based on the statutory formula. Macy's term of office (that is pertinent to this litigation) began in January 1995.41 Because the statutory scheme allowing county supplement was enacted well before Macy's term of office had begun,42 any increase (or decrease) in salary supplement, which is brought about by the county budgetary process, would stand unaffected by the restrictions imposed by Art. 23 § 10. IV SUMMARY ¶19 Macy's salary supplement for fiscal year 1996-1997 was effectively converted to an efficacious appropriation. Assuming that the commissioners do have the power to prevent a supplement's inclusion in the budget,43 they did not effectively impress their will by a timely challenge to the fund's inclusion (in the budget board's budget) before the excise board had finalized the process and let it ripen into an appropriation. The commissioners' January 21, 1997 resolution that restricts the salary supplement to a six-month period is inefficacious. It took place after the excise board had finalized the budget board's fiscal-year program and thus transformed its content into a de jure appropriation of funds. The county appropriation, which at its final stage withstood the excise board's scrutiny, must control over any discordant board of commissioners' resolutions that either preceded or followed the de jure budget's birth. ¶20 Because the statute that allows a county to supplement the DA's state-paid salary was enacted before Macy's term of office had begun, the supplement may be increased (or decreased) by the county budgetary process without offending Art. 23 § 10 of the state fundamental law. ¶21 The trial court's summary judgment is accordingly affirmed. ¶22 HARGRAVE, V.C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER, SIMMS, OPALA, WILSON and KAUGER, JJ., concur; ¶23 SUMMERS, C.J., concurs in judgment but not in the court's opinion; ¶24 WATT, J., concurs in part and dissents in part. FOOT