Opinion ID: 2631894
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: state law precludes a mayoral veto.

Text: Public education in Alaska is a function of state government. Article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution provides that [t]he legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State. [1] We have consistently interpreted this provision as a clear `mandate for pervasive state authority in the field of education.' [2] The legislature has assigned primary responsibility for exercising this authority to local school boards. [3] Because municipal revenues make up a large portion of a school district's budget, the legislature has also decided to give municipal assemblies certain powers with regard to school board budgetary and accounting processes. [4] But the legislature has delegated none of the school board's budgeting power to mayors. Although Anchorage is a home rule city, AS 14.14.065 requires it to be treated as a borough in its dealings with the Anchorage School District's school board: The relationships between the school board of a city school district and the city council and executive or administrator are governed in the same manner as provided in AS 14.14.060 for the school board of a borough school district and the borough assembly and executive or administrator. Alaska Statute 14.14.060, the statute mentioned in the above-quoted provision, delineates a borough school district's relationship to its corresponding borough government. Subsection .060(c) expressly covers school district budgets and the appropriation of borough school funds, conferring certain narrow powers on the assembly and vesting it with specific responsibilities: (c) Except as otherwise provided by municipal ordinance, the borough school board shall submit the school budget for the following school year to the borough assembly by May 1 for approval of the total amount. Within 30 days after receipt of the budget the assembly shall determine the total amount of money to be made available from local sources for school purposes and shall furnish the school board with a statement of the sum to be made available. If the assembly does not, within 30 days, furnish the school board with a statement of the sum to be made available, the amount requested in the budget is automatically approved. Except as otherwise provided by municipal ordinance, by June 30, the assembly shall appropriate the amount to be made available from local sources from money available for the purpose.
The plain language of AS 14.14.060(c) delegates budgetary powers and duties directly to the assemblynot to the borough as a whole; not to its mayor; not to a combination of the assembly and the mayor. The statute's narrow scope of delegation becomes even clearer when we consider subsection.060(c) in light of AS 14.14.060's other subsections; their delegating language expressly differentiates between a borough's assembly and its administrator. For instance, subsection .060(a) states that [t]he borough assembly may by ordinance require that all school money be deposited in a centralized treasury; but the subsection then specifies that [t]he borough administrator shall have the custody of, invest, and manage all money in the centralized treasury. [5] Similarly, subsection .060(f) makes the school board responsible for custodial services and routine maintenance, but directs that all major rehabilitation and repair be provided by [t]he borough assembly through the borough administrator. [6] These provisions demonstrate beyond cavil that, in delegating specified school district powers to local government through AS 14.14.060, the legislature knew how to distinguish between the assembly and the mayor and that it fully appreciated the need to do so explicitly when it wanted to draw that distinction. Common sense and plain meaning, then, point strongly to the conclusion that, in assigning the power to approve a borough school district's budget to the assembly, the legislature meant just that. The court shrugs off this evidence of legislative intent, theorizing that subsection.060(c)'s narrow delegation to the assembly implicitly carries with it the mayor's legislative power: [A]s between the school board and the municipality, the legislature chose to delegate the final budget approval power to the municipality. In effect, the municipality has allowed its mayor to share some of the assembly's influence over the amount appropriated. [7] But the court's theory strains plain meaning, especially when subsection .060(a) is viewedas it must be viewedin conjunction with AS 14.14.065. The latter provision requires that in a city like Anchorage [t]he relationships between the school board of [the] city school district and the city council and executive or administrator must be governed in the same manner as provided [for boroughs] in AS 14.14.060. By recognizing that AS 14.14.060 governs relationshipsin other words, that it describes the powers of a city's school board, its city council, and its executive or administrator in relation to each otherAS 14.14.065 forecloses the possibility that AS 14.14.060(c)'s delegation of power to the assembly was intended to encompass powers belonging to the mayor; for in a provision defining the powers of the assembly in relation to the administrator, each term necessarily excludes the other. [8] The court's theory also violates AS 14.14.060's core purpose. The court correctly notes that municipalities contribute large sums of local source funds to the school district budget and therefore have a legitimate stake in the school-budget process. [9] But the municipality's stake in local source funding hardly justifies reading AS 14.14.060(c) as a provision that abdicates state control over the school board budget and allows the municipality to treat the board as a de facto municipal agency. State law creates the school board as an independent governmental body; [10] and under the Alaska Constitution's public education clause, [11] the state has an overriding interest in preserving the board's independence, so that its actions will be faithful to [t]his constitutional mandate for pervasive state authority in the field of education. [12] Moreover, state revenues comprise the lion's share of a school district budget; even in Anchorage, where local source contributions outpace those of smaller municipalities, state appropriations pay more than seventy percent of the annual school district budget. [13] Thus, while the city undeniably has a legitimate stake in the school district's budgetary process, the state's interest is both constitutionally and economically superior. And because a school board's ability to capture adequate state funding depends on an early and reliable determination of local source funding, the board has a critical need to ensure that the municipal contribution is promptly determined, without being derailed by local politics. Alaska Statute 14.14.060(c) reflects these concerns: it strives to afford municipalities an opportunity to determine the amount of their local source contributions, but at the same time it protects the state's vital and overriding interest in early certainty. Despite the court's assertion to the contrary, nowhere does AS 14.14.060(c) expressly give municipalities the power to approve or reduce the total amounts of the proposed budget and local appropriation; [14] rather, it expressly delegates power only to the assembly. And in spite of the court's view that AS 14.14.060(c) does not try to describe comprehensively what happens when a school board submits its budget to the assembly for approval, [15] the statute does just that. The first sentence of subsection .060(c) specifies that the board must submit its budget for the following school year to the assembly by May 1. [16] While the first sentence suggests that the budget is submitted for approval of the total amount, the next sentence of subsection .060(c) makes it clear that the assembly's approval power is limited to determining the amount of the local source contribution; and to exercise this power, the assembly must make its determination and notify the board within thirty days. [17] The subsection's third sentence then specifies what happens if the assembly fails to act as prescribed: the school board's proposed local source contribution is automatically deemed approved. [18] Finally, the fourth sentence of subsection .060(c) provides that once the approved amount of local source funding is fixed, the assembly must appropriate that amount no later than June 30. [19] Thus, AS 14.14.060(c) does describe comprehensively what happens: it defines a two-step process for assembly action on the school board budget; the first step is optional, the second mandatory. First, if it acts promptly to make the determination and inform the board, the assembly may approve the amount of the local source contribution; failing that, the amount stated in the school board budget is automatically approved. Second, once the approval occursby action or inactionthe assembly must appropriate the approved amount by June 1; the statute allows no other amount, so the issue of a mayoral veto becomes moot. Neither the tight and comprehensive structure of this statute nor its underlying purpose leaves room for the extra political wrinkle of a mayoral veto. Assuming, then, that the court is correct in construing the Anchorage charter to reallocate some of the assembly's legislative power, [20] this reallocation violates the letter and spirit of AS 14.14.060(c) and is therefore invalid.
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.