Court Opinion

ID: 9699664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:44:28.273462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:55.261315
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Eagen:
I dissent from the majority opinion which adopts an unwarrantedly narrow and restrictive construction of the City’s powers of taxation, and needlessly abandons the City and its schools in a desolate position, with only the hope that the legislature will come to the rescue.
The core principle behind the majority’s disposition, namely, that a grant of the power of interim taxation has not been made unless by explication, is at loggerheads with the broad and pervasive grant of self-governing powers given to the City by the Home Rule Charter, and the Home Rule Enabling Act of 1949.
Those laws place plenary legislative powers in the City with respect to its municipal affairs, and bestow to the City, by logical implication, the power of interim taxation. Thus I consider this problem with the preconception that unless somewhere the power of interim taxation is taken from the City, it exists; the majority considers the problem with the preconception that the power of interim taxation does not belong to the City, unless somewhere, it is explicitly given to it.
*402The majority finds that the First Class Cities Act (Act of 1919) applies to this problem by force of a saving provision in the 1949 Charter Enabling Act, and precludes the existence of interim taxing powers in the City Council. I disagree. The 1949 Enabling Act bound the City by Acts of the General Assembly which limited rates of taxation. The 1919 Act was not a substantive restraint upon the City’s power of taxation ; it merely prescribed a budgetary scheme, and required that Council adopt a budget by a specified time. Nothing in the Act leads me to conclude that it was anything more than procedural. Since the Home Rule Charter provides its own budgetary scheme and procedure, the 1919 Act has no present applicability.
Section 2-301 of the Home Rule Charter enumerates four situations when the Council can make post-budget appropriations. One such situation is “to meet emergencies which could not be anticipated when the operating budget ordinance was passed.” The section provides further that such appropriations can be paid for out of “current revenues” among other things. Such authorization contemplates the power of interim taxation, which, as I have indicated, belongs to the City by virtue of the pervasive Home Rule Charter, and the Home Rule Enabling Act of 1949. And this is so even if the Charter’s budgetary scheme has the general effect of curbing the exercise of the interim taxing power in other respects.
The question next arises whether, and to what extent, an emergency exists so as to justify the use of the interim taxing power. On that score, I agree fully with Judge Spaeth’s opinion in the lower court. It is harsh and unrealistic to say that no emergency exists because the City has a working surplus of some $24,000,000 from which to defray its $13,750,000 unanticipated emergency. In fact, significant portions *403(exactly how much is not now evident) of the reserve had been committed to various City departments by the Director of Finance, with the knowledge and apparent approval of the Mayor and leaders of the Council, before the unanticipated emergency arose. Although only Council can make appropriations, still, since the transfers were authorized in good faith with Council’s acquiescence; and since transfer ordinances could have authorized the intra-budgetary appropriations at the time, we ought to regard the commitments (to whatever extent they were made) as having lawfully diminished the reserve. I would remand the case to the lower court so that it might be ascertained what fiscal commitments were made prior to the advent of the unanticipated emergency.
I agree with the majority that Bills Nos. 822 and 823, which increase the fines for parking and parking meter violations, should be sustained. Those measures result from the legitimate exercise by Council of its interim taxing powers.
I cannot, however, refrain from noting the inconsistency of the majority opinion in upholding the above measures. Council either has the power of interim taxation, or it does not have that power. The majority opinion systematically concludes that Council lacks the power of interim taxation, because neither the Home Buie Charter nor any act of the General Assembly bestows the power of interim taxation upon Council. Yet, in a miraculous, and indeed motherless birth, the majority surprisingly finds some interim taxing powers in Council — enough, at least, to produce Bills Nos. 822, 823, which are, as sure as death and taxes, interim taxes. (Incidentally, the majority concedes that Bills Nos. 822, 823 were enacted primarily as revenue measures. )
That turn of events, however, substantially changes the basic proposition of the majority opinion. Now the *404proposition of the majority becomes: “Council sometimes has the power of interim taxation.” Now, in contradiction to everything which it said before, the majority starts implying interim-taxing powers. But its implications are themselves erratic. For does it enhance the welfare (the basis of the police power) of the people of Philadelphia any more to increase parking fines than it would to enact revenue measures now to avoid additional taxpayer expense later? I, for one, do not think so.
Finally, I would uphold Ordinance Bills Nos. 828 and 829 which would raise approximately $28,750,000 for the School District. Section 12-303 (e) of the Supplement allows the Board to increase the aggregate total of budget appropriations when “unappropriated revenues become available in sufficient amount to maintain the budget in balance.” The quoted language implies the unrestricted power of interim taxation, and justifies the instant taxing measures.
Admittedly, my construction of the relevant provisions of the Charter and its Educational Supplement, as well as the Acts of 1919 and 1949, is as broad as the exigencies of this situation require. However, my basic approach finds warrant in the documents giving the City home rule powers.