Opinion ID: 2631894
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alaska Statute 29.20.270(c) Explicitly Prohibits a School-Budget Veto.

Text: Alaska's laws regulating municipal government, codified in Title 29 of the Alaska Statutes, confirm the legislature's intent to use the plain meaning of assembly in Title 14's provisions establishing relationships between school boards, assemblies, and mayors. Alaska Statute 29.20.270(c)(1) forbids a mayor from using the veto to strike or reduce... appropriation items in a school budget ordinance. [21] Although the court denies it, this unambiguous provision certainly does expressly prohibit the municipality from conferring [the veto] power on its mayor. [22] While the court attempts to avoid the express meaning of the statute by finding an implied exemption for home rule municipalities under AS 29.10.200, [23] the attempt is unconvincing. Alaska Statute 29.10.200 provides that [o]nly the following provisions of this title [AS 29.] apply to home rule municipalities as prohibitions on acting otherwise than as provided. The statute then lists fifty-nine provisions of Title 29 that directly limit home rule municipalities from acting otherwise than as required therein. This list omits reference to AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s ban on vetoes of school district appropriation items. [24] Based on the omission, the court infers that subsection .270(c)(1)'s prohibition does not apply to home rule municipalities. [25] But the court draws this inference too hastily. It overlooks the necessary implications of AS 14.14.065's command that cities be treated in the same manner as boroughs are treated under AS 14.14.060 for purposes of determining relationships between their school boards, their assemblies, and their mayors. [26] The question framed by AS 29.10.200 is whether its omission of the school-budget veto prohibition frees home rule cities to act otherwise than as provided by the prohibition. The omission admittedly precludes AS 29.20.270(c)(1) from applying directly to a home rule city. But we must next ask whether the veto ban might apply indirectly. The answer to this question is Yes. As already mentioned, AS 14.14.065 and 14.14.060 specify that for school-budget purposes, the rules governing relationships between a home rule city's school board, assembly, and mayor are the same rules that apply to ordinary boroughs. For these purposes, then, AS 14.14.065 makes a home rule city a borough governed in the same manner as provided in AS 14.14.060. [27] Since AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s ban on school district vetoes restricts a general-law borough administrator's veto power when a borough assembly exercises its delegated authority to modify or approve a school budget under AS 14.14.060(c), and because AS 14.14.065 unambiguously regards home rule cities as boroughs in their relationships with their school boards, assemblies, and mayors, AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s school-budget veto ban attaches to a home rule city: the city is a functional borough under AS 14.14.065 and AS 14.14.060. Hence, AS 29.20.270(c)'s omission from AS 29.10.200 is inconsequential. Far from indicating that the legislature impliedly chose to let each home rule municipality decide whether to give its mayor the power to veto or reduce school district budget ordinances, [28] this omission evinces the legislature's recognition that subsection .270(c)(1)'s veto ban did not need to be listed in AS 29.10.200. Again, home rule cities are ordinary boroughs, not home rule cities, for purposes of AS 14.14.060(c); as such, they are governed by the veto ban regardless of its omission from AS 29.10.200. [29] And even if paragraph .270(c)(1)'s prohibition did not apply to home rule municipalities, a mayoral veto would not be authorized under AS 14.14.060(c)'s narrow delegation of power to the assembly alone. The court errs in concluding otherwise.