Court Opinion

ID: 9755766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:49:45.82541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:10.969806
License: Public Domain

NORMAN Mark KLAPPENBACH, Special Justice, concurring. I concur with the majority’s decision reached today and write to add other factors important to my decision to do so. The City seems to argue that Amendment 65 allows it to take existing user fees, pledge those fees to fund the financing of the revenue bonds and then use the general fund or other tax revenues to pay for maintenance and operations of the Zoo, Fitness Center and Golf Courses (enterprise fund) that were previously paid for with the user fees now pledged to retire the bonds. I find this argument unconvincing. This is clearly a case of the city attempting to do indirectiy what it cannot do directly. It is hard to conceive that such a result is what the voters had in mind in passing Amendment 65. I agree with the majority’s conclusion that Amendment 65 forbids pledging tax revenues to fill the gaps left by using the user fees to finance the bonds. To hold otherwise would make meaningless the provision in Amendment 65 that the funding for the bonds come from sources other than assessments for local improvements and taxes and would clearly dilute the taxpayer’s rights to vote on tax increases. The record below reflects that the enterprise fund has traditionally been operated at a deficit and that deficit was funded from the general fund. Section 2 of Ordinance No. 17,690 requires that the city continue to provide sufficient funds to maintain the operation and maintenance of the enterprise fund: Furthermore, the City has covenanted in the Indenture, identified hereinafter to appropriate sufficient funds to insure the efficient operations and maintenance of the park and recreational activities of the City and does hereby affirm such covenant for purposes of this Ordinance. The record further reflects that the City’s Projected Pro Forma Financial Statements for the Recreation Services Fund anticipated the debt service on the bonds to be $1,756,015 for 2000, $1,763,454 for 2001, $1,761,125 for 2002, and $1,761,215 for 2003. The projected total expenses, not including debt service, for those years are: $3,977,676; $4,136,783; $4,302,254; and $4,474,344 respectively, while the projected required operating subsidies (Taking into account the debt service on the bonds) are expected to be $2,122,671; $2,144,203; $2,157,465; and $2,171,945 respectively. The operating subsidies required prior to the issuance of the bonds were $780,147 (actual) for 1997, and $340,391 and $353,308 (projected) for 1998 and 1999 respectively. I find it difficult to buy the city’s contention that projected deficits of this size can be made up by budget cuts and still maintain an efficient operation of the facilities. However, it was Appellant’s burden to prove that the general fund and tax revenues would be used to fill the gaps left by using the user fees to finance the bonds, and I must agree with the majority that she did not meet that burden. This conclusion is not inconsistent with the holding in Part I. While Amendment 65 and the applicable statutes allow for revenue bonds to be repaid from revenues from sources other than those financed (i.e., revenues derived from any special fund or source other than assessments for local improvements and taxes or revenues), the funds used to finance the revenue bonds must come from either a new fee or an increase of a fee already in existence so that the use of those fees in funding the bond retirement does not cause general fund or other tax revenue to be used to replace those fees.