Opinion ID: 2604688
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Impact of the Muskogee-prescribed Regime is Unnecessarily Narrowed

Text: Today's constriction of the Muskogee analysis rests on the view that when an obligor is allowed to resort to sinking funds for satisfaction of an unbudgeted revaluation liability, a penalty is levied on taxpayers, contrary to the constitutional cash or pay-as-you-go plan. [22] The court's conclusion is unsupported by extant jurisprudence. Graves v. Bd. of Comm'rs. of Cimarron County, [23] cited in the opinion, is inapposite. That case found constitutionally infirm an obligation rested upon a voluntarily-entered contract, much the same as the court's teaching in Del City v. FOP Lodge No. 114. [24] These authorities are plainly both inapplicable to and dissimilar from the case before the court today, which deals with an involuntary duty cast by the law's command rather than with a voluntary contractual obligation. Law-imposed obligations are free from the budgeting strictures of Art. 10, § 26, Okl. Const., [25] whose provisions prohibit public funds from being encumbered beyond a single fiscal year. An uninterrupted line of authority unequivocally supports this long-recognized exception for statute-cast duty. [26] Today's opinion marks the only departure. Sinking funds are constitutionally mandated. [27] Resort to them must be treated as an authorized exception (to the provisions in Art. 10, § 26 [28] ) for collection of all law-imposed liabilities that are involuntarily incurred. [29] There is no authority for the court's refusal today to honor the settled doctrine.