Opinion ID: 1378445
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The fixing of salaries and wages of municipal officers and employees is a proper subject of municipal legislation and, as such, is subject to the initiative and referendum powers expressly reserved to city voters by Article IV, Section 1(5) of the Oregon Constitution.

Text: There is a further and independent reason why the decision by the Court of Appeals must be reversed. That is because the fixing of salaries and wages for municipal officers and employees is a proper subject of municipal legislation and, as such, is subject to initiative and referendum by city voters under Article IV, Section 1(5) of the Oregon Constitution. Article IV, Section 1(5) of the Oregon Constitution provides that: The initiative and referendum powers reserved to the people by subsections (2) and (3) of this section are further reserved to the qualified voters of each municipality and district as to all local, special and municipal legislation of every character in or for their municipality or district. The manner of exercising those powers shall be provided by general laws, but cities may provide the manner of exercising those powers as to their municipal legislation.    (Emphasis added) As previously noted, this court in LaGrande/Astoria I stated, although in a somewhat different context, that:    cities sometimes place    rules for the conduct of government into ordinances, or perhaps resolutions, by-laws, or other forms of enactment allowed by the city's charter. It is not the label that matters but the role of the provision in local self-government.  (Emphasis added) (281 Or. at 150, 576 P.2d 1204) The Roseburg ordinance involved in this case provides not only procedures for collective bargaining between the city and the representatives of its employees and for the determination of wages for city employees in the event of an impasse in collective bargaining, as previously stated, but also provides that in the event of such an impasse and after findings by a factfinding board, the city council shall call for a special election of the voters of the city at which the best offers of the city and the union shall be submitted to the voters of the city, whose decision shall be final and binding. In spite of the extremely broad reservation of power to voters of Oregon cities of the referendum power as to  all local, special and municipal legislation of every character , and the statement by this court that [i]t is not the label that matters, but the role of the provision, the majority holds, in effect, that the Roseburg ordinance under which, in the event of an impasse in collective bargaining, the amount of the compensation to be paid to city firemen or policemen is to be submitted by referendum to a vote of the city voters is not municipal legislation subject to powers expressly reserved to city voters by Article IV, Section 1(5) for the following reasons: In the absence of a superseding statute, the city would have been free to legislate an entirely different scheme of employment relations with or without collective bargaining and impasse resolution provisions. By virtue of PECBA, however, the decision (impasse arbitration) is now beyond the city's choice. It is immaterial to the validity of the statute that the city council has decided by ordinance to refer to a plebiscite a future decision which is no longer the city's to make. Were it otherwise, local government could cripple the ability of the state to legislate regarding any matter of state policy which affected local governments by the simple expedient of local referendum. The home rule amendments were not intended to have that drastic, general effect. 102-103. With all due respect to the majority, this reasoning simply begs the question whether, conceding that a city cannot, by initiative or referendum, adopt legislation regarding any matter of state policy (such as by the adoption of a city ordinance providing the death penalty for murder), an ordinance which provides for a referendum to the voters of a city on the question of the amount of compensation to be paid to city officers or employees is municipal legislation subject to the powers expressly reserved to city voters by the provisions of Article IV, Section 1(5) of the Oregon Constitution. That question has never before been submitted to this court for decision. That question has, however, been considered by other courts, whose decisions would also be ignored by the majority. In City of Las Vegas v. Ackerman, 85 Nev. 493, 457 P.2d 525 (1969), it was held (at 457 P.2d 528) that:    The fixing of the salaries of municipal employees in the City of Las Vegas is a legislative function. The people have the power through the initiative process to enact legislation fixing such salaries.  (Emphasis added) It is of particular significance to note that the controlling provision of the Nevada Constitution reserved to voters of cities the power of initiative and referendum in terms identical to those of Article IV, Section 1(5), i.e., as to all local, special and municipal legislation of every kind.  To the same effect, see Glass v. Smith, 150 Tex. 632, 244 S.W.2d 645 (1952). [22] In view of the broad language of Article IV, Section 1(5), which reserves to city voters the power of initiative and referendum as to all local, special and municipal legislation of every character,  as well as the length and strength of the democratic tradition in Oregon, in which the right of initiative and referendum was first recognized in 1906 by constitutional amendment, I am of the firm opinion that all voters of Oregon, including all city voters, are entitled to a liberal construction by this court of that broad language of Article IV, Section 1(5), and that, as a result, this court should hold that the fixing of salaries and wages of municipal officers and employees is not only legislation, but also that an ordinance which fixes the amount of compensation to be paid to city officials and employees is municipal legislation, so as to be subject to the exclusive control of the voters of a city by the process of initiative and referendum under Article IV, Section 1(5). Indeed, as noted by this court in Rose v. Port of Portland, 82 Or. 541, 562, 162 P. 498 (1917), when what was then Article IV, Section 1a was submitted to the voters for approval in 1906 as an amendment to the Oregon Constitution, following a statement by its sponsors which said, among other things: The adoption of this amendment will give the people power to control salaries of county and district officers. (Emphasis added) Again, to illustrate the point, consider the hypothetical case of a typical small incorporated city with a population under 500 and which employs one police officer, who may be designated by charter or ordinance as its chief of police. (As of 1980, there were 60 incorporated cities in Oregon with a population under 500.) [23] Assume that in such a small city and under such a charter or ordinance the council should pass a new ordinance raising the annual salary of the chief of police from $12,000 to $50,000. Or assume, as a further hypothetical case, that the commissioners of the City of Portland should enact an ordinance raising the annual salaries of not only all commissioners, but also its police chief, to $100,000. The holding by the majority would require one of two results in such a case: (1) that such an ordinance referring to the voters of either the small Oregon city or the voters of the City of Portland the question whether such an increase in compensation to city officials and employees is not legislation subject to the referendum powers expressly referred to city voters by Article IV, Section 1(5) of the Oregon Constitution, and that there is no right or power of referendum under such facts, or (2) that even if such an ordinance is legislation subject to such a referendum, an ordinance fixing the compensation of city officers or employees is not municipal legislation within the exclusive power of city voters to control, but that the state may by statute fix or substantially increase the amount of compensation to be paid to city officers and employees. In view of the basis upon which what was then Article IV, Section 1a was submitted to the voters of Oregon for approval, either of such conclusions would surely come as a shock to all city voters in Oregon, not to speak of the sponsors of what was then Article IV, Section 1a and those who voted for its adoption in 1906. Either of such conclusions would also make a mockery of the provisions of what is now Article IV, Section 1(5) of the Oregon Constitution, which in the broadest possible terms reserves to all city voters the power of initiative and referendum as to all local, special and municipal legislation of every character.