Court Opinion

ID: 9532169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:18:45.94741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:41.624774
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
Mandamus is a special proceeding, as distinguished from action, and will not issue where there is a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy available in the ordinary course of law.
The petitioner has these remedies available: 1) use a portion of its approximately one-half million dollar contingency fund; 2) decrease or readjust its budget up until October 1, 1979; 3) call for a special election; 4) adopt a supplemental budget “when moneys are available.” It refuses to avail itself of these remedies obviously preferring litigation.
This case comes before us in fever. An October 1,1979, deadline is thrust upon this court. This instant justice is dangerous as it does not allow for mature reflection and academic consideration. The prayer for relief is unclear, impossible of performance, and urges this court to command action which is unauthorized and illegal in law. Mandamus cannot control discretion and petitioner seeks to control the discretion of respondents.
I agree with the majority opinion that dissolves the alternative writ as to the county board, but once this conclusion is reached the proceeding should end instantly and not entangle this court in a political battle between two subdivisions of government in this state.
This court has cleverly circumvented the County Board’s authority to set the taxable percentage of true and full value on the taxable property in the school district. What the court impliedly acknowledges it cannot do directly (order the County Board to raise the taxable percentage), it has miraculously managed to accomplish indirectly.
The petitioner prepared its budget; the respondent County Board determined the percentage of true and full value to be used as taxable value (30%), which left a “shortfall” of approximately $50,000. Thereafter, the petitioner amended its budget pursuant to SDCL 13-11-3.1. This increased the budget by nearly $300,000 after the respondent County Board had responsibly and faithfully exercised its bounden statutory duty. It is my view that it has been the petitioner School Board that has been unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious and not the respondent County Board.
This court, by compelling the county auditor to spread a mill levy of sixty percent true and full value on the taxable property in the school district, is ordering an official to do an act that neither of the litigants have requested. This relief is outside the pleadings, arguments, and issues of this extraordinary proceeding. The majority opinion, through its directive, has given birth to a new concept which would turn this court into a taxing authority and relegate it to a super equalization board. Not only is such action unconstitutional, but its net effect is to hold that the County Board serves an idle function.
I do not believe that the duties of county boards of equalization are so perfunctory that they must meet the whim and dictates of school boards in South Dakota. If so, it is the death knell to county government in South Dakota.
*317The medicine prescribed in the majority opinion is worse than the ailment. I would grant respondent’s motion to quash the alternative writ (which I feel should not have been granted in the first instance) including the command to the county auditor.
The majority opinion violates uniformity and equality of taxation, and is therefore discriminatory. Rapid City Area School District No. 51 — 4 encompasses not only a portion of Pennington County, but also a portion of Meade County. I wish to reflect by my own table the determinations of the Meade and Pennington County Boards of Equalization. The record discloses:
TAXABLE PERCENTAGES SET BY COUNTY BOARDS
Meade County Pennington County
1979 31% 1979 30%
1978 41% 1978 40%
TAXABLE PERCENTAGES BY MAJORITY OPINION
Meade County Pennington County
1979 31% 1979 60%
Historically, adjoining Boards of Equalization in counties wherein a school district overlaps attempt equalization out of a spirit of fair play, cooperation, and simple justice to their respective resident taxpayers. As I see it, taxpayers in Meade and Pennington Counties will bear unequal burdens and I therefore express that such a determination by this court violates the state and federal constitutional equal protection clause.
The court, having fragmentized and dissected Pennington County into a situation where the Rapid City School District’s property is valued at sixty percent true and full, while the county budget is governed by a taxable percentage of thirty percent, strengthens my position that it autonomously dove into taxation waters without a constitutional swimsuit.