Opinion ID: 2631894
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Implied prohibition summary

Text: State law does not expressly prohibit home rule municipalities from adopting this veto power. Education is subject to pervasive state control in Alaska. But AS 14.14.060(c) gives municipalities, not their school boards, the final word over the total amount of their school districts' proposed budgets. Only the school boards can decide how to spend the available funds, but the municipalities may limit the funds available. An item veto that only affects the total amount the assembly appropriates respects this limitation on the powers of the school boards. Alaska Statute 14.14.060(c) does not prohibit the municipality from delegating to the mayor, in the form of the veto power, part of the assembly's role in the process of approving the budget ordinance. Alaska Statute 14.14.060(c) does not address what happens after the assembly enacts an appropriation ordinance. It does not specify or imply a procedure that is inconsistent with a mayoral veto. And finding in AS 14.14.060(c) some implicit prohibition on this veto power would be inconsistent with AS 29.20.270(c)(1) and AS 29.10.200. Where possible, we construe sections of a statutory scheme to be consistent with one another. [106] We therefore hold that allowing a mayoral veto over the school budget does not irreconcilably impede the purposes of Title 14. Contrary to the dissent's argument, [107] we are not favoring the constitution's home rule clause over its public education clause. We read Titles 14 and 29 of the Alaska Statutes to allow home rule municipalities to permit their executives to apply the item veto power to school budget ordinances. We thus adhere to a policy choice the Alaska legislature has already made. We consequently conclude that AS 14.14.060 and charter subsection 5.02(c) are not so substantially irreconcilable that one cannot be given its substantive effect if the other is to be accorded the weight of law. [108]