Opinion ID: 2075881
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mayor's Authority to Cut the Board of Education's Budget

Text: The District asserts that the Mayor's use of Order 90-103 unilaterally to reduce the Board's budget was justified on several statutory grounds. Specifically, the District urges that [1] §§ 442(a)(1), 448, 449(b), 603(c) and (d) of the Self-Government (or Home Rule) Act, D.C.Code §§ 47-301, -310, -312(2), -313(c) and (d) (1990), [16] [2] applicable provisions of the federal Anti-Deficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 1341 et seq. (1988), [17] and [3] the D.C. Appropriations Act, 1990, Pub.L. 101-168, 103 Stat. 1267, 1272, 1275 (1989), [18] impose a duty on the Mayor to ensure that the District remains financially sound during the fiscal year. These statutory provisions do impose on the Mayor responsibility, as comptroller, for administering the District's budget during the fiscal year. Moreover, we have held that some of these provisions, coupled with others including a statute not relevant here, D.C.Code § 37-106 (1990), authorized the Mayor unilaterally to reduce the Public Library's appropriation. Hazel v. Barry, 580 A.2d 110, 112-113 (D.C.1990). But as Hazel itself recognizes, see p. 114 n. 11, these statutes do not necessarily confer authority on the Mayor to reduce the Board of Education's appropriations. As the Board and amicus point outand as the trial court ruledanother statutory provision found in the Self-Government Act, § 452, D.C.Code § 31-104 (1988), limits the Mayor's power over the Board's appropriations to acting jointly with the Council. Section 31-104, in relevant part, states: With respect to the annual budget for the Board of Education in the District of Columbia, the Mayor and the Council may establish the maximum amount of funds which will be allocated to the Board, but may not specify the purposes for which such funds may be expended or the amounts of such funds which may be expended for the various programs under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education. Id. (emphasis added). The Board argues that this statutory limitation reflects the historical position of the Board as an elected body, and that allowing the Mayor the power to reduceunilaterallythe Board's appropriations would intrude on the Board's established autonomy by violating express statutory limits. We agree. Specifically, § 31-104 provides that the Mayor and the Council may establish the maximum amount of funds which will be allocated to the Board. Id. The language is unambiguous: establishment of the Board's maximum budget must include participation of both the Mayor and the Council. In this case, however, the Mayor is attempting unilaterally to establish a new maximum, but nevertheless a maximum, which the Board can spend. His actions are in direct violation of the statute. We find no merit in the District's argument that § 31-104 applies only to formulation of the budget, before appropriation. First, no such limit is present in the express wording of the statute, which must be our first guide for statutory interpretation. See Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 753 (D.C.1983) (en banc). Second, even if the District is correct in contending that the Mayor's and Council's joint responsibility under § 31-104 is limited to budget formulation, we do not understand why the Mayor's unilateral action under Order 90-103 is not a formulation, though not the initial formulation, of the Board's budget. Changing the budget of the Board, whether initially or through a process of amendment during the fiscal year, involves establish[ing] the maximum amount of funds which will be allocated to the Board, precisely what § 31-104 requires the Mayor and Council to do together. [19] According to this statute, therefore, the Mayor cannot unilaterally reset the maximum amount of funds available to the Board of Education. See Evans v. Washington, 106 Daily Wash. L.Rptr. 1929, 1937 (D.C.Super.Ct. Sept. 7, 1978) (Belson, J.) (However, once the Mayor and the Council have set the maximum amount of funds to be allocated to the Board [of Education] within the overall District government budget, and Congress has authorized appropriations, the Mayor's sole remaining responsibility is to provide the means by which expenditures are made.) (Emphasis added.) The District argues that the legislative history of § 31-104 limits the Board's budgetary autonomy to determining the manner in which appropriated funds are allocated, and does not insulate the Board against a revised appropriation ordered by the Mayor. We note, initially, that legislative history is seldom relevant unless the statutory language is ambiguous. Varela v. Hi-Lo Powered Stirrups, Inc., 424 A.2d 61, 64 (D.C.1980) (en banc). There is no ambiguity in this case. But even if we do consider the legislative history, see Peoples, 470 A.2d at 754, as the District invites, the District's conclusion does not follow. All the history the District cites stresses the respective roles of the Mayor and the Council, acting together, in the budgetary process. [20] If anything, the history supports the Board's reading of § 31-104 that the Mayor and Council, not the Mayor alone, must act to recommend reduction of the Board's appropriation. Also unavailing is the District's contention that the D.C. Appropriations Act, 1990, see supra note 18, implicitly overrides § 31-104 and empowers the Mayor to reduce the Board's appropriations. We recognize that this congressional act refers to funding and apportionment of debt reduction by the Mayor and expressly provides that each appropriation is but a maximum amount (with two exceptions not relevant here). See supra note 18. But unlike the Mayor's unilateral budgetary authority over the Public Library, see Hazel, slip op. at 9, 10 & n. 11, the Mayor's budgetary authority over the Board of Education is limited to concurrent action with the Councila limitation Congress did not explicitly override in the 1990 Appropriations Act. Absent language in the 1990 Act that would change that concurrent authority, we cannot properly assume that the specific budgetary procedure outlined in the Self-Government Act, § 452, D.C.Code § 31-104 (1988)that the Mayor and Council together set the maximum Board budgethas been repealed by implication. See United States v. Young, 376 A.2d 809, 813 (D.C.1977); Goodwin v. District of Columbia Bd. of Ed., 343 A.2d 63, 65-66 (D.C. 1975). The District argues, finally, that our rejection of its argument leaves the Board of Education immune from budget cuts. That is not the case. The Board is insulated only from budget cuts which the Mayor initiates unilaterally. Pursuant to § 31-104, the Board's budget is subject to reductionas indeed it was, two months earlierwhenever the Mayor and the Council can agree that such cuts are appropriate and Congress approves. See also D.C.Code § 47-301(c) (1990); Convention Center Referendum Comm. v. District of Columbia Bd. of Elections and Ethics, 441 A.2d 889, 906 n. 31 (D.C.1981) (en banc) (plurality opinion). But § 31-104 makes clear that the elected Board of Education retains fiscal insulation against the Mayor's unilateral interference. As Hazel noted in specifically excluding the Board of Education from the ruling: the language of the Self-Government Act explicitly vests certain powers in the Board of Education and restricts the Mayor's budgetary authority over the Board. Hazel, at 114 n. 11. [21] In fact, this court carefully limited Hazel to the Public Library and expressly left open the possibility that a case, such as this one, could come out differently: we emphasize that our holding applies only to the Public Library; it does not necessarily extend to funding disputes involving other agencies, entities, or branches of the District of Columbia government. Id. at 110-111. We do not ignore the fact that the Mayor has a duty under the Self-Government Act to take action to keep the District's budget in balance. See id. at 112. What is at issue in this case, however, is the Mayor's attempt to fulfill this duty by unilaterally calling for reduction of appropriations for the Board of Education. The Self-Government Act itself, § 452, D.C.Code § 31-104 (1988), expressly provides that the Mayor may not do so alone. The judgment of the Superior Court is therefore Affirmed.