Court Opinion

ID: 7807276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:08:04.627124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:21.839329
License: Public Domain

Smith, J., (after stating the facts). Provision was made in our present Constitution for the management of the internal affairs of the counties by the creation of county and quorum courts for that purpose. Section 28 of article 7, of the Constitution of 1874, provides: “The county courts shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in all matters relating to county taxes, roads, bridges, ferries, paupers, bastardy, vagrants, the apprenticeship of minors, the disbursement of money for county purposes, and in every other case that may be necessary to the internal improvement and local concerns of the respective counties. The county court shall be held by one judge, except in cases otherwise herein provided.” Section 30 of article 7 of the Constitution provides for the levy of taxes and the making of appropriations for the expenses of the county.hy the quorum court.  (1-2-3) The Constitution contemplates that these two courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all matters relating to the levying of county taxes, and the making of appropriations for the expenses of the county, and the disbursement of money for county purposes. The Legislature would be unduly burdened, if it was required to consider the merits of the various local affairs of the respective counties, and no such authority was given it. It is within the province of the Legislature to determine the various purposes for which, and the order in which, the quorum court may make appropriations for the various county purposes, and the Legislature has done this in section 1499 of Kirby’s Digest. This section is subject to the Legislature’s right to amend as it may deem proper to do; but while it may enumerate, or limit, those purposes for which the county may expend its revenues, it can not itself make these appropriations, otherwise a conflict of authority and of action might arise between the quorum courts and the Legislature, and the Constitution has undertaken to avoid this condition by vesting the exclusive authority to make these appropriations in the courts of the counties.  (4-5) We think the act of the Legislature above mentioned validating the appropriation and directing the county judge of Craighead County to make an order, directing the issuance of warrants of that county, is ineffective, and does not validate the action of the quorum court in making this appropriation. If the Legislature had the authority to direct the county judge to issue this .warrant, pursuant to the action of the quorum court in making this appropriation, then it would have had the right to make this appropriation in the first instance, independent of the action of the quorum court, and as we have said, no such authority is vested in the Legislature. It may be true the Legislature could authorize the county court of any particular county to establish a school, or other institution, to respond to the particular needs of that county, and might authorize a quorum court to make the necessary appropriations for its support and maintenance. But we are not called upon here to decide whether this could he done or not, for this is not what the Legislature here undertook to do. The agricultural school of the First District, located in the city of Jonesboro, is in no sense an institution of .that county, and its support can not be a county purpose. A study of the act authorizing the establishment of this school makes it entirely clear that this school is a State institution. No officer of Craighead or any other county as such, has any voice in its control or management. The trustees vested with the control and management of the institution are appointed by the Governor of the State, subject to the concurrence and approval of the Senate, and any vacancy which may occur on the board of trustees is similarly filled, and these trustees have the entire control and management of the institution, and they employ the teachers and prescribe the course of study. The State has reserved to itself the right to complete control over this institution, and has assumed the burden of its maintenance, and appropriations were made therefor, not only in the •act creating the district school, but in subsequent acts of the General Assembly. It is true the institution is located in Craighead County; but it was required that the school be located in some one of the counties constituting’ the First Agricultural School District, and Craighead was one of those counties, and all of those counties are parts of the State. A discretion was vested in the trustees, in the location of this institution, and they were directed to consider inducements which should be offered for its location; but the inducement contemplated was, of course, only such as might be lawfully made. It may be true, as appellant offered to prove, that Craighead County will derive certain benefits which will not be enjoyed by other counties of the State in that district, because of the location of the school in that county. Such institution located there is more accessible to the people of that county; but such benefit does not deprive the institution of its character as a State institution. The act creating this institution necessarily contemplated that it was desirable that the institute should have as large attendance as possible, and it may be true of this institution, as it is of most other institutes of learning, that it will be more generally patronized by residents of territory immediately adjacent to it, than by citizens of territory more remote. But no right so to patronize and enjoy the benefits of the institution are conferred exclusively upon the people of Craighead County. Upon the contrary, section 9 of the original act provides that the tuition of the school shall be free, and that the trustees may limit the number of students from time to time, according to the capacity and means of the institution, and' shall make rules of admission so as to equalize as near as practicable the privileges of the school among the counties, according to population. It is thus seen that if Craighead County was permitted to make this donation, its citizens would acquire no greater rights to the use of the facilities.of the school, than those enjoyed by the citizens of other counties. In 1899, the Legislature of the State of Florida enacted a law in regard to -the militia of that State. It contained the following provision: “It shall be the duty of the board of county commissioners in each county in which there is a company, or battery of State troops, to provide each company or battery with an armory suitable for its meetings and drills and the safe storage of arms and equipments.” In a proceeding to compel the commissioners of a county in that State to erect an armory,it was contended this act was void because it violated the provisions of section 5 of article 9 of the Constitution of that State, which reads as follows: “The Legislature shall authorize the several counties and incorporated cities or towns in the State to assess and impose taxes for county and municipal purposes, and for no other purposes, and all property shall be taxed upon the principles established for State taxation. But the cities and incorporated towns shall make their own assessments for municipal purposes upon the property within their limits.” * * * The Supreme. Court of that State, in the case of State ex rel. Milton v. Dickenson and others, 60 L. R. A. 539, 44 Fla. 623, held this act to be unconstitutional, and in so doing, said: “No body of the State militia, in other words, has any prescribed function or duty to perform exclusively in or for any particular county in the State, that it is not under equal obligation to perform in or for any other county of the State wherever the exigency may arise for its exercise. And whenever and wherever it is so called upon to act, it is there as the representative of the State’s supreme sovereignty, and not as that of the county in which it acts. The place of resi- ' dence of its individual members has nothing whatever to do with fixing its status, either as a State or county institution. The conclusion reached is that the militia of the State, and'every part thereof, is essentially and necessarily a State institution, or, rather, an arm of the State Government, resort to which can only be had upon the failure of all other governmental authority; and that it can be, and should be, in the very nature of things, wielded only by the supreme sovereign power of the State; that it is in no sense such a county institution or establishment as that any particular county can exclusively be either authorized, or required, to impose taxes for its, or any part of its, maintenance. It is essentially a State institution, taxation for the support and maintenance of which can be imposed only by the State, and, when so imposed, such taxation is required by paragraph 1, of article 9, of our Constitution, to be at a uniform and equal rate upon all the taxable property throughout the State, and can not for such purpose be confined to or burdened upon the property in any. one county, to the exclusion of any or all the other counties of the State.” Among other cases cited in that opinion in support of the language which we have quoted is the case of Hutchinson v. Ozark Land Co., 57 Ark. 554. This Hutchinson case, supra, involved the validity of a tax sale where the county court of Clay County, which county is divided into two judicial districts, had levied a higher tax for county general purposes in une district than in the other. Because of this inequality, that sale was held void, and Justice Mansfield there said: “If the taxes levied in the two judicial districts of Clay County were not county taxes within the meaning of the Constitution, then the county court has no power to levy them, and they were for that reason illegal. But if they were levied for county purposes, that made them county taxes, and the nature of such taxes required them to be imposed by a levy applicable to the entire county.” The validity of the appropriation of the quorum court of Craighead County depends upon the decision uf the question whether or not the location and maintenance of this school was a county purpose, and a majority of the court are of the opinion that it was not; but that the school is one of the institutions of the State, and as such, the burden hot only of its maintenance, but of its erection, must be borne by the State at large. Cotham v. Coffman, 111 Ark. 108; 163 S. W. 1183. The judgment of the court below is therefore affirmed.