Court Opinion

ID: 9534958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:44:05.013405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:08.752316
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I dissent.
Plaintiff does not seek relief on the basis of any right of individual taxpayers to recover the surplus in question. They have no such right. The tax was valid when levied (Rancho Santa Anita, Inc. v. City of Arcadia, 20 Cal.2d 319, 324-326 [125 P.2d 475]), and was not invalidated when some taxpayers received less benefit from the use of the funds raised than other taxpayers. (Anaheim Sugar Co. v. County of Orange, 181 Cal. 212, 217 [183 P. 809] ; see 16 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3d ed.) § 44.47, pp. 127-128. )1 Thus, by organizing a new junior college district (Ed. Code, §§ 2551-2570), owners of property therein could not make the tax invalid or create a right to any of the proceeds thereof on the ground that they will not get the benefits of the surplus that other taxpayers of Santa Clara County will get whose property is not within the new district.
Nor has plaintiff any legal right to the surplus. The tax was levied by the county for county purposes and when collected was county property. County property belongs to the state, and the legal title is held by the county as trustee for the benefit of its residents. (County of Los Angeles v. Graves, 210 Cal. 21, 25 [290 P. 444].) Similarly, school district property belongs to the state, and the school district has the same powers and responsibilities with respect to it that counties have with respect to their property. (Hall v. City of Taft, 47 Cal.2d 177, 181-182 [302 P.2d 574] ; Pass School Dist. v. Hollywood etc. Dist., 156 Cal. 416, 418 [105 P. 122, 20 Ann. Cas. 87, 26 L.R.A. N.S. 485].) The proceeds of this tax were county property when they first came into the county treasury. At no time has the junior college tuition fund or any part thereof been changed from county property to junior-*778college-district property. The county is still trustee of this fund, and plaintiff has no legal claim thereto. What plaintiff is seeking is a transfer of funds from the county as trustee to it as trustee on the ground that a part of the surplus was acquired from property owners within its boundaries and although such owners have no right to recover the surplus they should get it indirectly through the reduction in their taxes for the support of plaintiff that could result from its acquisition of part of the surplus.
Such transfers can be made if authorized by statute. Thus, the holding in Pass School Dist. v. Hollywood Dist., supra, that when a new school district is carved out of an old one, title to property located in the new district is transferred to it, was based on a statutory provision vesting in school districts management and control of school property located within their boundaries. (P. 418.) The court noted that “in the absence of such provision, the rule of the common law obtains, and that rule leaves the property where it is found. . . (P. 419 ; Hughes v. Ewing, 93 Cal. 414, 417-418 [28 P. 1067].) This rule applies here, for there is no statutory provision for the transfer of these funds from the county to plaintiff. Not only is there no provision for such a transfer, but the statutes expressly direct the use to which the funds are to be put and the manner in which they are to be administered. (Ed. Code, §§ 20204-20208.) The county has adhered to these statutory directions, as it was obliged to do, and has expended the surplus in question for the junior college education of its residents in the school year 1957-1958. Education Code section 20201 specifies the educational expenses to be paid from the junior college tuition fund, and section 20202 authorizes the board of supervisors to levy a tax “sufficient in amount to defray all amounts specified in subdivisions (a), (b), and (c) of section 20201.” There is no authority for a tax levy to pay this judgment or any other costs from the junior college tuition fund that are not specified in section 20201. Payment of the judgment out of the county’s general fund, which is raised by taxes levied on all property in the county, would defeat the purpose of the judgment, for it would require property owners in plaintiff’s territory to pay nearly half the judgment themselves even though it is intended for their benefit against other property owners in the county.
Pasadena Junior College Dist. v. Board of Supervisors, 216 *779Cal. 61 [13 P.2d 678], on which plaintiff relies, does not support its contention that it has an equitable right to recover the surplus independent of any statute on the ground that the surplus was created by a tax levy not authorized by statute but required only by equitable principles. That case involved the construction of Education Code section 7232 (now § 20202) exempting from taxation for the junior college tuition fund property “situated in any junior college district.” That phrase was held to refer to the time at which the expenses payable from the junior college tuition fund were incurred rather than the time at which the tax therefor was levied. It is true that the court chose the more equitable interpretation of this language, but there can be no doubt that it was the statute and not equitable principles independent thereof that compelled the result in that ease.
The Legislature is aware of the problem of allocating surplus tax funds such as those in issue here. Education Code sections 20151 through 20162, for example, provide for the county school tuition fund to pay the expenses of California students attending school in adjoining states. This fund, like the junior college tuition fund, is created by a special ad valorem tax levied in one year to pay the costs incurred in the previous year. Section 20162 directs the county superintendent of schools, with the approval of the county auditor, to “transfer any unnecessary surplus in the county school tuition fund to the county school service fund [see Ed. Code, §§ 20101-20109] whenever in his judgment the surplus will not be needed for the payment of tuition. ’ ’ There is no similar provision for the transfer of a surplus in the junior college tuition fund. Moreover, in 1959 the Legislature added section 20211 to the provisions of the Education Code relating to the junior college tuition fund. That section eliminated the procedure under which owners of property in a new junior college district would be taxed twice during the first year of the district’s existence—once by the district and once by the county for the prior year’s expenses payable from the junior college tuition fund. The Legislature did not provide, however, for the apportionment of that fund or any surplus therein between the county and a new district. Inasmuch as the contribution to be made by the state under this section is to be “the difference between the amount which would have been raised [in the new district] in such year if a special tax *780had been levied in such territory pursuant to Section 20202, and the amount which actually was or will be raised in such year from the levy of the special tax required by this paragraph, ’ ’ a surplus, attributable in part to the state, in part to property owners in the new district (if the junior-college-tuition-fund tax rate exceeds that of the district), and in part to other property owners in the county, is as likely to arise in the future as in the past, for delinquencies can never be estimated exactly.2 By providing for apportionment of any such surplus the Legislature could have reduced substantially the state’s contribution to the fund. It is significant that, having made provision for disposition of like surpluses in similar funds, and having had this problem before it in 1959, the Legislature did not provide for such apportionment. “It is not our province to weigh the desirability of the social or economic policy underlying the statute or to question its wisdom; they are purely legislative matters.” (Allied Properties v. Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 53 Cal.2d 141,146 [346 P.2d 737].)
The judgment should be affirmed.
Gibson, C. J., concurred.
Respondents’ petition for a rehearing was denied June 27, 1962. Gibson, C. J., and Traynor, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The 1957 tax levy raised $714,661.44, and the surplus carried over from the 1956 tax was $31,445.71. After expenditures of $710,313.93 for the school year 1956-1957, the fund contained a surplus of $35,793.22. Property owners in plaintiff’s territory therefore received the same benefits as other property owners in the county from 95.2 per cent of the fund. As to the remaining 4.8 per cent, those in plaintiff’s territory are no differently situated from others in the county who derived no direct benefit from the junior college tuition fund or a part thereof.

For example, assume that the county levies a junior-college-tuition-fund tax of one cent per $100 assessed property valuation, that the new district levies a district tax of one-half cent per $100 assessed property valuation, that the total assessed value of all property in the county is $100,000,000, and that half of it is in the new district. Under the old procedure property owners in the new district would pay both taxes in full, or a total of $7,500, $5,000 of which would be paid to the county and $2,500 to the district. Other property owners in the county would pay only the county tax, or a total of $5,000 to the county. Under the new procedure property owners in the new district would pay a total of $5,000 of which $2,500 would be paid to the county and $2,500 to the district. The state would make up the difference between what they paid to the county and what they would have paid to the county under the old procedure, or $2,500. A surplus is as likely to arise from an over-estimate of delinquencies under either procedure. If, for example, the surplus were $1,000, under the new procedure $250 would be attributable to the state, $250 to the property owners in the new district, and $500 to other property owners in the county. Under the majority opinion the state as well as the new district would be entitled to $250. Had the Legislature intended any such disposition of the surplus it would have so provided.