Court Opinion

ID: 9833255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:33:57.517397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:00.937671
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[12] Appellants, in their motion for rehearing, present us what, from their viewpoint, are two horns of a dilemma, namely': Either the act creating the Smithville district does relieve the territory taken from the Alum Creek and the Upton districts from the maintenance tax levied and assessed against those districts prior to the passage of that act, or it does not. They assert that, if it does, it violates article 1, § 10, of the Constitution of the'United States, which forbids any state to make “any * * * law impairing the obligation of contracts,” and also article 1, § 16, of the Constitution of Texas, which declares that “no * * * law impairing the obligation of contracts shall be made,” or, if it does not, that it subjects that part of the territory so taken to unequal taxation, inasmuch as the same will also be subjected to a maintenance tax in the Smith-ville district.
We hold that the passage of the act automatically relieved the portions of the common school districts included in the Smith-ville district from the payment of any maintenance tax to the district to which they formerly belonged. We think that the legal status of a school district is the same as that of counties which “are not corporations in the fullest sense of the term. They are commonly called quasi corporations. They *992are created by the state for the purposes of government. Their functions are political and administrative, and the powers conferred upon them are rather duties imposed than privileges granted.” Heigel v. Wichita County, 84 Tex. 394, 19 S. W. 562, 31 Am. St. Rep. 69. They are created for political purposes, and are subject to control by the legislative powers of the state. Such a corporation is not a contract within the purview of the Constitution. Alley v. Denson, 8 Tex. 301.
Public education is a function of state government. That it may efficiently discharge its duties in this respect, it creates, either by direct legislative action or indirectly through its agents, commissioners’ courts, school districts with defined boundaries, which, under certain restrictions, may levy nnd collect taxes within their respective boundaries, to be used in aiding the state in its work of education. The Legislature may change such boundaries as it may see fit, even, to the extent of abolishing a district by absorbing it within the 'boundaries of another district.
A maintenance tax had been levied in the common school districts referred to on August 8, 1921, but was not due or collectable for several months thereafter. Suppose the whole of these districts had been included in the Smithville district, which was created August 18, 1921; who would have collected the maintenance tax for these districts ? Not the districts themselves, for they would have had no existence. Upon the passage of the act creating the Smithville district, the Alum. Creek and Upton districts ceased to exist as to the territory included in the Smithville district. These districts had no continuing right to such territory, and depriving them of the same did not violate any contract.
As to any injustice that may have been done to the Lake Farm common school district by reducing its territory, that is a matter to be remedied by the Legislature or by the commissioners’ court of Bastrop county.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
■ Motion overruled.