Court Opinion

ID: 9640114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:57:43.405824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:16:41.958849
License: Public Domain

KELLEY, Judge,
Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the result reached by the majority with respect to the Commonwealth’s preliminary objections to Counts I, II and III in the Harrisburg School District’s petition for review. However, I disagree with the majority’s resolution with respect to the Commonwealth’s preliminary objections to Counts IV and V in the Harrisburg School District’s petition for review.
With respect to Count IV, the majority finds that the provisions of Act 91, which amended Section 1706-B(a), 24 P.S. § 17-1706-B(a), do not violate the provisions of Article III, Section 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.1 Section 1706-B(a) provides in pertinent part, “[e]xcept for the power to levy taxes, the board of control may exercise all other powers and duties conferred by law on the board of school directors and the powers and duties conferred by law on a special board of control under sections 693, 694 and 695 [of the Public School Code]...” 24 P.S. § 17-1706-B(a).
In turn. Section 693 states, in pertinent part:
*237When the special board of control assumes control of a distressed school district, it shall have power and is hereby authorized to exercise all the rights, powers, privileges, prerogatives and duties imposed or conferred by law on the board of school directors of the distressed district, and the board of school directors shall have no power to act without the approval of the special board of control... [T]he special board of control may require the board [of school directors]:
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(2) To increase tax levies in such amounts and at such times as is permitted by the act to which this is an amendment. ..
24 P.S. § 6-693.
Finally, Section 694, 24 P.S. § 6-694, provides, in pertinent part:
When the operation of a distressed school district has been assumed by the special board of control, the board of school directors of the district shall, upon the recommendation and with the approval of the special board of control, levy an additional tax or taxes sufficient to liquidate the indebtedness of the district. .. [Notwithstanding present limitations on tax rates imposed by law, such limitations shall not apply to distressed school districts.
Thus, although the foregoing provisions purport to exclude the power to levy taxes from a board of special control, they also confer upon the board of special control the power to compel the board of school directors to levy taxes, and they remove the statutory limitations on tax rates that may be imposed. Such provisions, which vest the board of special control with the discretion to impose or increase a tax, and the authority to compel its imposition or increase, clearly run afoul of Article III, Section 31. See Wilson v. School District of Philadelphia, 328 Pa. 225, 241-242, 195 A. 90, 99 (1937) (“[T]he main purpose of Article III, Section [31], was to correct the recognized economic mistake of taking the fiscal power away from the regular, legislative body and putting it in the hands of an appointive commission, organized for special purposes and not subject to the control of the people. Here the effect of the delegation by the General Assembly is to vest in the school board the unlimited power of increasing expenses, plus the right to levy a tax in an amount sufficient to cover the expenditures to be incurred. The Constitution prohibits this, and this court must give effect to the mandate of its framers.”) (citing Tranter v. Allegheny County Authority, 316 Pa. 65, 173 A. 289 (1934).). Cf. Warren v. Ridge, 762 A.2d 1126 (Pa.Cmwlth.2000).
With respect to Count V, the majority finds that the provisions of Section 1706-B(a), incorporating Sections 694 and 695 of the Public School Code, do not violate the provisions of Article VI, Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.2 As noted *238above, Section 1706-B(a) provides in pertinent part, that “[e]xcept for the power to levy taxes, the board of control may exercise all other powers and duties conferred by law on the board of school directors and the powers and duties conferred by law on a special board of control under sections 693, 694 and 695 [of the Public School Code]..24 P.S. § 17-1706-B(a).
Section 693 provides, in pertinent part, that “[w]hen the special board of control assumes control of a distressed school district, it shall have power and is hereby authorized to exercise all the rights, powers, privileges, prerogatives and duties imposed or conferred by law on the board of school directors of the distressed district, and the board of school directors shall have no power to act without the approval of the special board of control...” 24 P.S. § 6-693.
Section 694 provides, in pertinent part, that “[w]hen the operation of a distressed school district has been assumed by the special board of control, the board of school directors of the district shall, upon the recommendation and with the approval of the special board of control, levy an additional tax or taxes sufficient to liquidate the indebtedness of the district...” 24 P.S. § 6-694. Finally, Section 695 provides, in pertinent part, that “[t]he school directors of a distressed district may not resign their offices, except with the unanimous consent of the special board of control and shall...” 24 P.S. § 6-695.
Thus, under the foregoing provisions, the powers of the board of school directors have been transferred to the special board of control, the board of school directors only has the authority to act as directed by the special board of control, and the members of the board of school directors are prohibited from resigning their offices. Such a statutory scheme transferring the powers of the board of school directors, making that body impotent to act except at the express direction of the special board of control, and imposing upon the board of school directors a condition of “involuntary servitude ”, clearly constitutes an impermissible “removal from office”3 under the provisions of Article VI, Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. See, e.g., Commonwealth ex rel. Kelly v. Marinelli, 330 Pa. 82, 198 A. 623 (1938); Commonwealth ex rel. Kelley v. Clark, 327 Pa. 181, 193 A. 634 (1937); Commonwealth ex rel. Smillie v. McElwee, 327 Pa. 148, 193 A. 628 (1937).
Accordingly, unlike the majority, I would overrule the Commonwealth’s preliminary objections to Counts I, II, III, IV and V in the Harrisburg School District’s petition for review.

. Article III, Section 31 states, in pertinent part, that “[t]he General Assembly shall not delegate to any special commission ... any power ... to levy taxes or perform any municipal function whatever...” Pa. Const. art. 3, § 31.

. Article VI, Section 7 provides, in pertinent part, that "[a]ll civil officers shall hold their offices on the condition that they behave themselves well while in office, and shall be removed on conviction of misbehavior in office or of any infamous crime..Pa. Const. art. 6, § 7. This provision applies to the instant elected members of the board of school directors. See, e.g., In re Petition to Recall Reese, 542 Pa. 114, 123, 665 A.2d 1162, 1166-1167 (1995) ("[I]t must be remembered that school directors were elected public officers ... when the Constitution was adopted. In the absence of the existence of a system, necessarily in the minds of the framers, it would be held that they came within the express tenns of article VI, section [7], and that any act subsequently passed, providing a conflicting method of removal, was legally prohibited. But we must remember that the earlier legislation furnished a different manner of procedure in such cases, and it, or modifying acts of assem*238bly passed since 1873, will still be effective, unless an attempt is made to depart from the provisions as then existing." [Georges Township School Directors, 286 Pa. 129, 135, 133 A. 223, 225 (1926)] (emphasis added).”).

. See, e.g., William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act II, sc. ii, ("What's in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.”).