Court Opinion

ID: 9582198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:23:46.794511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:31.893490
License: Public Domain

Justice Lake
dissenting:
Proceeds of State tax levies, appropriated by the General Assembly for one purpose, may not lawfully be disbursed by State officers for a different purpose. Constitution of North Carolina, Art. XIV, § 3; State v. Davis, 270 N.C. 1, 9, 14, 153 S.E. 2d 749, cert. den., Nivens v. North Carolina, 389 U.S. 828, 88 S.Ct. 87, 19 L. Ed. 2d 84; Gardner v. Retirement System, 226 N.C. 465, 468, 38 S.E. 2d 314. See, Art. V, § 7, of the new Constitution which takes effect July 1, 1971. Consequently, the question before us is whether the proposed disbursement by *477the defendants of funds, appropriated by the General Assembly of 1969 for transportation of public school pupils, is, in part, for a purpose not intended by that General Assembly when it enacted the Appropriations Act of 1969.
The State Board is required by G.S. 115-181 (f) to allocate to the county and city boards, which elect to operate school buses, all funds appropriated by the General Assembly for the purpose of providing transportation to pupils enrolled in public schools. The allocation must be made in light of the number of pupils to be transported and all other circumstances affecting the cost of transportation, to the end that the total appropriation be divided fairly between such boards according to their respective needs. This allocation is required to be made at the beginning of the fiscal year, subject to a provision for holding a portion of the total appropriation in reserve, which provision is not here at issue.
G.S. 115-181 (g) authorizes the State Board to pay over to a particular county or city board, if so requested, all or any part of its allocation prior to the time such funds would normally be paid over to such board. This section of the statute, however, explicitly states that normally “all funds so appropriated by the General Assembly [an'd allocated by the State Board] shall be paid over to the respective county and city boards * * * in equal monthly installments throughout the regular school year.” (Emphasis added.)
Clearly, this statute contemplates that the Legislature will make an appropriation for transportation deemed by it sufficient to run the buses through the entire school year and that the appropriated funds will be allocated to that end. Thus, we must assume that the appropriation made by the General Assembly of 1969, for the 1970-71 school year, was intended by it to provide bus transportation throughout the entire school year for rural children attending schools in Dare and Cherokee Counties, and in other rural areas, as well as for children then contemplated as potential school bus riders in Winston-Salem, Charlotte and other cities. It is not contended that the appropriation actually made by the General Assembly of 1969 was not adequate for this purpose.
But for the decision of the Federal Court in Sparrow v. Gill, 304 F. Supp. 86, correctly summarized in the majority *478opinion, and for the resulting election of certain city boards of education to comply therewith by greatly expanding the number of city pupils to be given bus transportation, this case would not be before us. That sequence of events so greatly enlarged the number of pupils to be transported that the appropriation made by the 1969 General Assembly will not suffice to supply transportation for all the children throughout the State, including new riders in the city, for the entire school year 1970-71.
Sparrow v. Gill, supra, has no effect upon the proper construction of the Appropriations Act of 1969. If it would have been unlawful for the State Board to have allocated, and for the defendants to have disbursed, the appropriation made for the year 1969-70 as the State Board has attempted to do, and as the defendants propose to do, with the appropriation for the year 1970-71, then the allocation and the proposed disbursement now before us was and will be unlawful. The majority opinion states that it was the opinion of the State Board’s officers prior to August 1970 that it could not lawfully allocate the appropriation so as to provide funds for transporting children living in portions of the city not annexed since 1957. It is my view that those officers were right then and are in error now.
I agree with the majority that, upon this record, we must assume that the State Board, at the beginning of the 1970-71 fiscal year made an allocation of the total fund appropriated by the 1969 General Assembly for transportation of school children, which allocation, if lawful, would justify the proposed disbursements. The State Board did so by adding many thousands of city children to the bus riders contemplated by the 1969 General Assembly when it made the appropriation for the entire State for the entire school year. In so doing, the State Board necessarily took from the children of Dare, Cherokee, and other rural areas, the opportunity to ride to school after April first in order to provide for the new city bus passengers the opportunity to ride up to that date.
Of course, in so doing, the State Board acted in the hope that the 1971 General Assembly will appropriate additional funds sufficient to enable all the children to ride buses to and from school throughout the school year. There is no duty imposed by law upon the 1971 General Assembly to do so. At the time Judge Bailey was required to act and now, when we are re*479quired to do so, there was and is no way of knowing whether this hope of the State Board will be realized. We must decide this case on the assumption that no further appropriation will be made. Judge Bailey was required, and we are now required, to determine the authority of the State Board, thus to jeopardize the rural child’s opportunity in order to afford transportation to the city child, without any assurance that, if the State Board’s action is sustained, the entire school system of school bus transportation will not cease to operate on or about April first. Can the rural children lawfully be thus deprived of bus transportation after April first?
The majority opinion is clearly correct in saying that each city board may determine for itself, free from any control by the State Board, or other State agency, whether it will or will not operate school buses. G.S. 115-180. Thus, when the decision of the Federal Court in Sparrow v. Gill, supra, made it impossible for a city board to continue to provide bus transportation for children living in areas annexed to the city since 1957, unless it also provides such transportation for other children similarly situated in other areas of the city, each city board was, and is, free to choose between providing bus transportation for all such children or for none. That is not the question before us. The question before us is whether the State Board had authority to allocate to a city board, electing to provide transportation for all, a larger share of the appropriation made by the 1969 General Assembly than otherwise would be proper for the reason that the city board has so elected to transport all; that is, has elected to transport children not contemplated as bus riders by the 1969 General Assembly.
I do not find in the provision of G.S. 115-181 (g), authorizing accelerated payments of allocation installments, any support for what the State Board undertook to do. It has not only accelerated payments of allocation installments. It has allocated the appropriation so as to shift funds from county boards to city boards, or to some city boards, with the result that all of them will run out of money about the first of April, which was clearly not the intent of the 1969 General Assembly.
At first glance, G.S. 115-181 (f) seems to require the State Board at the start of a fiscal year to divide the total appropriation made by the 1969 General Assembly for school bus opera*480tion among the county and city boards, electing to operate buses, on the basis of the number of pupils each such board determines to transport. If that view be taken, any one of these three things can happen when, as here, the allocated funds will all be exhausted before the school year ends: (1) The buses will stop running, (2) the 1971 General Assembly will come to the rescue with an additional appropriation, or (3) the county and city boards will operate their respective bus fleets with local funds for the rest of the year.
If, on the other hand, the State Board, in allocating the appropriation made by the 1969 General Assembly, could not lawfully take into account the children who live in the parts of the city other than those annexed since 1957, which children the city board has now elected to transport, in deference to the decision of the Federal Court, and so the disputed disbursements are enjoined, these are the possibilities: (1) The county boards will operate their buses throughout the entire school year, and (2) the city boards’ buses will (a) stop operating when the lawfully allocated funds are exhausted, or (b) will be operated thereafter by local funds, or (c) the 1971 General Assembly will make a further appropriation to enable these buses to operate.
Judge Bailey’s order restrained the defendants from “making available for spending” by city boards any “tax funds of the State” for transportation of children living in the city to public schools within the city. This goes too far. A disbursement to a city board pursuant to a re-allocation, taking into account only those city pupils living in areas annexed to the city since 1957, would clearly be within the right and duty of the defendants, if the remaining transportation needs of the city board are met with local funds. It would not run counter to the decision of the Federal Court in Sparrow v. Gill, supra.
The Sparrow ease dealt with the right of children living in an older part of the city to ride a public school bus, so long as other children living in areas annexed to the city since 1957 are provided such transportation. It was not concerned with how the cost was to be divided between the State and the city, nor with whether all city school buses were to operate for all or only a part of the school year. It recognized that the Constitution of the United States does not forbid a State to distinguish, in this matter, between urban and rural children. Thus, if the *481State Board, at the start of the fiscal year 1970-71, had allocated the total fund appropriated for school bus transportation in such year on the same basis as that used in the allocation for 1969-70, and if the city board’s need for additional funds to transport all its pupils, living beyond the specified distance from their respective schools, were met locally, the decision in the Sparrow case would be carried out and the appropriated State funds would have been used as the 1969 General Assembly contemplated. Consequently, Judge Bailey’s order should, at least, be modified.
Does G.S. 115-181 (f) forbid such allocation of the appropriation made by the 1969 General Assembly? I think not. No session of the General Assembly can bind its successor. The 1969 General Assembly was free to determine for what purpose money appropriated by it might be spent. The question is, how did it mean for its appropriation to be spent?
Nothing else appearing, G.S. 115-181 (f) would lead me to the conclusion that the 1969 General Assembly meant for the appropriation to be allocated to the county and city boards just as was done by the State Board. However, something else does appear which brings me to a different conclusion.
The Governor’s Budget Message to the 1969 General Assembly expressly requested an appropriation for transportation sufficient to include the cost of busing children living in areas of the city other than those annexed since 1957. This, of course, was prior to the decision in Sparrow v. Gill, supra. This was what is known as a B-Budget request; i.e., an appropriation in addition to that deemed sufficient to continue former busing practices. Specifically, the Governor said to the 1969 General Assembly in this message:
“Further, public school bus transportation should be extended to include urban and suburban children. As long as the State assumes responsibility for school transportation, with all taxpayers supporting it, this service should not be limited to rural children who live more than one and one-half miles from the school.”
A bill to put this recommendation into effect, Senate Bill No. 91, was introduced in the General Assembly of 1969. It specifically directed the State Board to take into consideration, in allocating the appropriation for school bus transportation, all *482children living within a municipality on the same basis as rural children. That is, this bill specifically provided for allocation of the appropriation for school bus transportation on the basis that children living in parts of a city, other than those annexed to the city since 1957, would be carried to and from public schools by bus, if they lived the required distance from the school. It specifically provided for an appropriation of $1,609,-631 for the accomplishment of this purpose (the transportation of such city children) in the fiscal year 1969-70, and $1,688,921 to do the same in the fiscal year 1970-71. Senate Bill No. 91 was referred to the Appropriations Committee. It was not approved and died in that committee.
Only the A-Budget provision for public school transportation was approved and enacted by the General Assembly of 1969. That is, the appropriation, the allocation of which we now have before us, was made by a General Assembly, which was specifically requested to appropriate money for transportation of city children not theretofore considered by the State Board in making allocations and said, “No.”
I can find no basis for doubt that the 1969 General Assembly intended for its appropriation to be divided among the county and city boards without taking into account the desire of any city board, under pressure of a Federal Court decision or otherwise, to transport city children residing in parts of the city not annexed since 1957. That being true, the allocation for the fiscal year 1970-71 made by the State Board is unlawful and will not authorize disbursement of State funds by the defendants. The State Board should make a re-allocation of the appropriation made by the 1969 General Assembly and disbursements heretofore made to the respective county and city boards should be charged against such new allocations.
I also dissent from the holding of the majority opinion that the admission in evidence of bills introduced in the 1967 and 1969 Sessions of the General Assembly was error. Our decision in D & W, Inc., v. Charlotte, 268 N.C. 577, 151 S.E. 2d 241, does not support the majority’s position in this case. There we were concerned with an affidavit of a member of the Legislature offered in evidence to show what the Legislature intended by a statute which it enacted. Of course, as we there held, that is not competent. Here the evidence shows the Legislature’s action, *483not some member’s opinion about what the action was intended to do. What the General Assembly did, including what it refused to do, may properly be considered by the courts of this State in construing the meaning of its enactment. “In determining the meaning of a statute, it is proper to consider contemporary action of the legislature.” 50 AM. JUR., Statutes, § 326. (Emphasis added.)
It is true that the defeat of a bill making an action mandatory does not necessarily show an intent to prohibit such action voluntarily undertaken, nor does it necessarily show an intent to exclude such voluntary action from the benefit of an appropriation made by another act of the Legislature. Whether or not rejection of proposed legislation, either on the floor or in committee, is a valuable indication of what the Legislature intended by the statute which it enacted, depends on the nature of the rejected proposal and its relation in time and content to the enacted statute. A contemporaneous rejection of a proposal to appropriate for a specified purpose clearly indicates an intent to omit such purpose from the appropriation made. The majority’s sweeping declaration that the Legislature’s inaction or refusal to act does not show the proper construction to be placed on what it did enact is too broad.
The refusal of the 1969 General Assembly to accept the Governor’s recommendation and B-Budget request for an appropriation to do what the State Board has undertaken to approve is certainly a part of the legislative history of the very appropriation we are considering. In my opinion, it is most persuasive. With the wisdom or lack of wisdom of this legislative decision, we may not properly concern ourselves in this case, nor may we properly construe its action by conjecture as to what it would have done if it had been given the wisdom to foresee what the Federal Court was later to decide in Sparrow v. Gill, supra.
I would, therefore, modify and affirm Judge Bailey’s order.