Opinion ID: 1808883
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Effect of the Absence of Direct Reference to a Budget in the Context of Ordinances

Text: The minority contends that we should draw significance from the absence of the term budget in connection with references to ordinances because, it argues, the legislature could have chosen to use, but did not, the term budget-ordinance. The trial court held that § 3.07 grants the council the sole power to adopt the general-fund budget for the City of Montgomery, without discussing the mayor's power to veto ordinances in § 3.15. Because §§ 3.07 and 3.15 deal with the same subject matter, the powers of the city council, we must read them in pari materia and construe them together to ascertain the meaning and intent of each section. Ex parte Weaver, 871 So.2d 820, 824 (Ala. 2003). The conclusion that we should attach significance to the omission of any reference to the word budget in § 3.15 does not withstand scrutiny when § 3.15 is considered in its entirety and in light of the plain meaning of the term ordinance. Section 3.15 uses the term ordinance to describe a means of  appropriating any money for any purpose. [5] (Emphasis added.) Ordinance is defined in Black's Law Dictionary 1132 (8th ed.2004) as follows: An authoritative law or decree; esp., a municipal regulation. Municipal governments can pass ordinances on matters that the state government allows to be regulated at the local level.  Also termed bylaw; municipal ordinance. [Cases: Municipal Corporations 105. C.J.S. Municipal Corporations §§ 247-251.] ` An ordinance ... may be purely administrative in nature, establishing offices, prescribing duties, or setting salaries; it may have to do with the routine or procedure of the governing body. Or it may be a governmental exercise of the power to control the conduct of the public  establishing rules which must be complied with, or prohibiting certain actions or conduct. In any event it is the determination of the sovereign power of the state as delegated to the municipality. It is a legislative enactment, within its sphere, as much as an act of the state legislature.' 1 Judith O'Gallagher, Municipal Ordinances § 1A.01, at 3 (2d ed.1998). (Some emphasis original; some emphasis added.) Appropriating money for various purposes through the adoption of a budget is an administrative function of the City of Montgomery. Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the reasonableness of interpreting the council's action of passing a budget as the adoption of an ordinance pursuant to the powers enumerated in § 3.15 is found in the style of the document through which the council adopted the first council budget  the very budget that Mayor Bright vetoed; it is entitled,  Ordinance 61-2006. (Emphasis added.) Moreover, if we do not harmonize §§ 3.07 and 3.15 and instead accept the minority's reasoning that every power granted to the council by § 3.07 is exempt from the veto power granted to the mayor by § 3.15, we would then have to ascribe to the legislature an intent to provide the mayor with a virtually meaningless veto power. We find no basis to conclude that Act No. 618 withholds the authority to adopt a budget from the sweep of the council's power to pass ordinances in § 3.15. Therefore, we draw no significance from the absence of the term budget in connection with the grant of power in § 3.15 to the mayor to veto ordinances.