Opinion ID: 1870644
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: regard to the bond referendum promotion

Text: The school board paid Spectrum Productions $9427.50 for a documentary to educate the public on the bond issue. Dr. Smith stated that the documentary was nonpartisan. We were advised that we could spend money to educate the community, not to tell them how to vote. We would have been in violation, from what I've been told if we had spent money to try to tell somebody how to vote. A total of $945.03 was spent for a fish fry and lunch for poll workers on election day. Attached is a copy of an invoice for payment from Cochran/Sysco Food Services. The items listed on this invoice were purchased for the Bond Referendum Fish Fry and lunch for poll workers. The total of $945.03 should be charged to the Special Account-Bond Referendum. Your approval of this request for payment will be appreciated. Record at Vol. IV, p. 172. Additionally, the chancellor determined that the school board spent $21,548.92 to pay campaign workers to promote passage of the bond referendum. At a school board meeting on July 3, 1985, the board approved a $25,000.00 advertising budget for the bond referendum. Pages 40-79 of Vol. IV of the record contain the documentation for the salary expenditures. Payment of the funds was designated, School Related Community Service Work. According to Dr. Smith, the campaign workers and other promotional efforts were in response to distortions in the community generated by Mississippi Power and Light concerning the impact of a bond referendum on the local tax base. This expenditure of salary funds went to campaign workers who canvassed door-to-door for a four month period and worked the polls promoting passage of the bond issue on the day of the election. After a careful review of the record, we find that no fewer than sixty-five (65) people were on the payroll of the Claiborne County Board of Trustees at various times over the four month period from October of 1984, to January of 1985. The rate of compensation was $4.00 per hour. Campaign workers were paid salaries from a low of $16.00 for one worker to a high of $1600.00 for another who itemized 400 hours of work over a period of sixty-one (61) days. Campaign activities included door-to-door solicitation, answering the telephone, putting up posters and passing out pamphlets. In Mississippi, a school district is without explicit or implicit statutory authority to expend taxpayer funds in a promotional effort for the passage of a bond referendum. Had the legislature intended to authorize school boards to wage active campaigns for bond issues, a provision in chapter 59 of title 37 would have been the appropriate place to inform the board of this authority. Section 37-59-1 et seq. of the Mississippi Code is devoted to school bonds and obligations. Nothing in this section even hints that a school board can spend public funds to promote passage of a bond issue. Likewise, the statute which empowers local school districts to erect and maintain school facilities falls far short in authorizing a campaign budget of $25,000.00 and lunch for poll workers on the day of the election. See Miss. Code Ann. § 37-7-301(d) (Revised 1990) (authority for school board to construct schools).