Opinion ID: 1857262
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Volunteer Appreciation Dinners.

Text: The city of Olive Branch held Volunteer Appreciation Dinners annually until 1989 when the Auditor questioned them. Olive Branch contends that the dinners served a dual purpose. They were held to promote and publicize the city and to encourage the volunteers to continue their efforts in the coming year and the resulting publicity from those dinners cast a favorable light upon the city and its citizens. The volunteers included the City Beautiful Committee, the volunteer fire department, volunteer ambulance drivers and EMTs, the Planning Commission, the Housing Authority, the Industrial Development Committee, reserve police officers, and the trustees of the Chain Public Library. Olive Branch insists that its expenditures, regarding the Volunteer Appreciation Dinners, were lawful under Mississippi Code Annotated §§ 17-3-1, -3. The Auditor rebuts that the dinners were merely donations and not legal expenditures of public funds. That there was no decision by the governing authorities ever spread on the minutes of the municipality suggesting the purpose of the parties was to advertise and bring favorable notice to the city. Unlike the exceptions taken by the Auditor of the above expenses, the record reveals that Olive Branch brought up the Volunteer Appreciation Dinners at the board meetings. The minutes of the December 6, 1988 meeting contain the following paragraph: Alderman T.D. Doddridge made motion, seconded by Alderman G.P. Gillespie, that the city continue to have the annual Christmas Dinner in appreciation for all the volunteers who serve in various capacities for the City of Olive Branch. Motion put to vote and passed unanimously. The minutes for the November 4, 1986 meeting read: Mayor Nichols advised the Board that the date of Friday, December 5, 1986 had been set for the annual Volunteer Appreciation Christmas Dinner. The discussion on the Volunteer Appreciation Christmas Dinner, in the meeting of October 6, 1987 consisted of the following: Next, Mayor Nichols informed the Board that the date of Friday, December 4, 1987 had been set for the annual Christmas Dinner at the Holiday Inn University. Olive Branch states that the dinners were well within a municipal's discretion on how to spend its advertising dollars. As to the Auditor's argument, Olive Branch argues that it is not required that each word uttered in a Board meeting be recorded by the clerk. Although the Auditor's office would like a detailed discussion involving each expenditure to appear on the minutes, this Court does not hold the Board to such exacting, technical standards. To supports its argument Olive Branch cites the case of Stennis v. Board of Supervisors of Clay County, 232 Miss. 212, 98 So.2d 636 (1957), where this Court stated it is established that strict legal technicality cannot be required. It is enough that by fair and reasonable interpretation the meaning of the minutes of boards of supervisors is ascertainable. Id. at 227 (citing Noxubee County v. Long, 141 Miss. 72, 106 So. 83 (1925); People's Bank of Weir v. Attala County, 156 Miss. 560, 126 So. 192 (1930)). Olive Branch also cites Paine v. Underwood, 203 So.2d 593 (Miss. 1967), in which this Court stated that the minutes of the Board reciting its orders and judgments will be looked upon with indulgence, and although they may not be skillfully drawn, if by fair and reasonable interpretation their meaning can be ascertained, they will be sufficient to answer the requirements of law. Paine, 203 So.2d at 598; In the Matter of the Validation of $30,000 Road and Bridge Bonds of 1960, Supervisors Dist. No. 3, Neshoba County, Mississippi, 242 Miss. 125, 133 So.2d 267 (1961). In Paine protectors appealed a Hinds County order to rezone residential land to commercial for a shopping center. When the Board adopted this ordinance the minutes of the board meeting were incorrectly captioned Resolution rather then Ordinance. This Court held that the caption Resolution, although not correct, sufficiently conveyed the Board's purpose. It is not necessary for the Board of Supervisors, in their order, to recite all the evidence that appeared before them, or to set out in full, in their order, all the evidentiary matters pertinent to the controversy; it is sufficient to recite the jurisdictional facts, as ultimate facts, without reciting the evidence upon which such facts depend for proof of their existence. Board of Supervisors Adams County v. Giles, 219 Miss. 245, 259-60, 68 So.2d 483 (1953) (quoting Hall v. Franklin County, 184 Miss. 77, 185 So. 591 (1938)). Olive Branch is correct in its assertion that this Court does not hold municipalities to an exact standard. Yet the cases cited above stand for the proposition that after the board has thoroughly discussed the issue and all is noted in the minutes, if a word is misspelled, or if the wrong word is chosen, and if the facts in the minutes are sufficient to convey their purpose, then the municipality will not be held at fault. Had Olive Branch determined that such dinners would be for the purpose of advertising and bringing into favorable notice the opportunities, possibilities and resources of Olive Branch, these governing authorities would need to record such determination upon the official municipal minutes as duly found and determined, then they could donate the dinners from available funds within the limit of the stated amount in Mississippi Code Annotated § 17-3-1. By no stretch of the imagination is announcing that Olive Branch would hold the Volunteer Appreciation Dinner on a certain date adequate under the standards that have been set out by this Court. Olive Branch failed appropriately to document why the Board and Mayor determined to spend the tax payers' money as it did. Thus, the Auditor's exception to these expenditures is valid.