Opinion ID: 2604688
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: extant jurisprudence provides a firm foundation for treating a mandamus-based duty to pay as a sinking fund obligation

Text: Board of County Commissioners of Muskogee County v. City of Muskogee [15]  whose parameters are needlessly narrowed by today's opinion  teaches that a mandamus writ [16] commanding the performance of a statutory duty to pay is the functional equivalent and the legal analogue of a money judgment. Extant jurisprudence undergirds this principle and in no way limits its application solely to budgeted expenses. [17] Money judgments against school districts may be satisfied in only one fashion  by resort to the constitutional [18] and statute-mandated [19] sinking fund. It hence follows that when the legislature has cast upon the Districts a duty to pay their proportionate share of revaluation costs, the order that commands them to make such payment represents a sinking fund obligation ex lege. [20] Because I would neither erase the settled law's memory nor ignore binding precedent, I would hold today that a writ of mandamus to pay revaluation costs calls for the performance of a statute-imposed duty and hence represents a sinking fund obligation as a matter of law. This solution would avoid coming to grips with the constitutional infirmity addressed by the court's opinion. A.