Court Opinion

ID: 9560506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:50:09.715444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:43.694190
License: Public Domain

Lewis, Justice:
This appeal is from an order of the lower court declaring a 1969 amendment to Act No. 685 of the 1967 Acts of the General Assembly unconstitutional as violative of the sepa*439ration of powers provision (Article I, Section 8) of the South Carolina Constitution.
The General Assembly adopted, in 1967, Act No. 685 (55 Stat. 1383) by which the Board of Trustees of Cherokee County School District No. 1 was established as the governing body of the Cherokee County public school system. The Board was granted broad authority over the operation of the county public school system, including sole authority in all budgetary matters of the school district and the power to “determine and fix the amount of the levy needed to operate the schools in the district for any one year.” The auditor of the county was then required to levy and the treasurer to collect the tax as determined by the Board.
Act No. 685 originally contained no specific limitation upon the power of the Board of Trustees to fix the amount of the annual levy for school taxes to operate the schools in Cherokee County. However, in 1969 the General Assembly adopted Act No. 542 (56 Stat. 922) which provided that, if approved by county wide referendum, Section 31 of Act No. 685, relating to the power to levy taxes, would be amended so as to require the approval of a majority of the resident members of the Cherokee County Legislative Delegation before any tax levy for the school district could be increased. The referendum required by Act No. 542 resulted in the approval of the amendment to Section 31.
Section 31, as originally adopted, was as follows:
“The Board of Trustees of School District No. 1 may, by resolution duly adopted, determine and fix the amount of the levy needed to operate the schools in the district for any one year and shall on or before the first day of July of each year notify the auditor of the county of the amount of the levy and file with him a certified copy of the resolution. It shall thereafter become the duty of the auditor of the county to levy and the treasurer to collect, the tax as determined and directed by the Board upon all the taxable property in the school district as other taxes are collected.”
*440The statute of 1969 (No. 542) amended the foregoing provisions of Section 31 by adding at the end thereof the following:
“Provided, however, no such tax levy shall be increased in any year without the approval of a majority of the resident members of the Cherokee County Legislative Delegation.”
Thereafter disagreement arose as to the administraton of the power to levy a tax under the statutes, as amended, and this action was brought by the Board of Trustees against the auditor and treasurer of the county, challenging the constitutionality of the amendatory statute, and for certain alternative relief. We need consider only the basic constitutional issue.
The Board takes the position that the amendatory Act of 1969, by making any increase in the tax levy for school purposes subject to approval by the Cherokee County Legislative Delegation, authorized the Legislative Delegation to exercise executive or administrative powers in violation of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of this State, which provides:
“In the government of this State, the legislative executive, and judicial powers of the government shall be forever separate and distinct from each other and no person or persons exercising the functions of one of said departments shall assume or discharge the duties of any other.”
In attempting to sustain the 1969 amendment, the defendants (the auditor and treasurer) contend that the authority conferrend upon the County Legislative Delegation to approve any increase in the tax levy constitutes a proper exercise of the legislative power to tax.
The lower court properly sustained the view of the Board of Trustees and held that the amendatory Act was unconstitutional as violative of Article I, Section 8.
*441The power of the Legislature to provide for the imposition of taxes is unquestioned. Article 10, Section 3, South Carolina Constitution. Under Article 10, Section 5, of the Constitution, this power to tax may be delegated, as it was in this case. No contention is here made that the Legislature cannot impose limitations on the power delegated, when such limitations are imposed in the exercise of its legislative power. Thus, as stated in the order of the lower court, the Legislature may delegate the power to tax, but also impose by law a maximum millage ceiling. This, however, is not the effect of the provision here in question.
Under Act No. 685, the Board of Trustees was granted the general power to levy taxes for school purpose in the district. After conferring this power on the Board, the Legislature passed Act No. 542 which attempted to amend the previous Act by granting to the Cherokee County Legislative Delegation the authority to approve or disapprove any tax increase adopted by the Board. This in effect, constituted the County Legislative Delegation a committee of the Legislature to determine not only when a tax increase was proper but also to take such action with regard to the increase as that committee might deem proper.
That the determination of the amount of the tax levy in the school district may be a legislative function delegable to the corporate authorities of the School District under Article X, Section 5 of the Constitution is beside the point. The Act does not and can not authorize the members of the delegation to participate in this determination as legislators, for they may exercise legislative power only as members of the General Assembly.
- To authorize them to participate as corporate authorities of the school district, as the Act attempts to do, clearly assigns to them a dual role in violation of the separation of powers clause of the Constitution.
*442Judgment affirmed.
Moss, C. J., and Brailsford and Littlejohn, JJ., concur.
Bussey, J., dissents.