Court Opinion

ID: 9854297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:04:43.049677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:00.388680
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice
(concurring).
I concur. I have concluded that the phrase 
“support and maintenance of the different institutions and colleges, respectively * *
*191used in Section 5 of Article 10 of the State Constitution, includes building for university purposes. Support and maintenance of a university or college must be different than support and maintenance of a single or even a group of buildings. Maintaining a university must include maintaining a teaching force, which includes in turn paying sufficient salaries to obtain and keep first-class men, constructing buildings for the housing of students (dormitories) and for classrooms, laboratories and all the manifold and incidental structures necessary for the conducting of the various schools of the university. It would include kitchens, dining halls, auditoriums, student union buildings, field houses and stadiums, all of which are also designated as the subjects of self-liquidating projects in Chapter 38 of Title 53, U.C.A.1953. Under that phrase I opine that the University could accumulate the yearly revenue from the land grant fund over the years, and with the accumulations build a dormitory or contract for its building, or perhaps build it on force account, if there is no provision for advertising for bids in matters involving over a certain amount.
I opine also the resort to Chapter 38, Title 53, U.C.A. 1953 is not compelled. That chapter grants permission. I stated in my concurring opinion in Spence v. Utah State Agricultural College, 119 Utah 104, 225 P. 2d 18, at the bottom of page 34 of the Pacific Reporter:
“An examination of Ch. 126, Laws of Utah, 1947, reveals that said Ch. 126 is not a requirement that the University or College erect any new buildings. It is a tender by the Legislature of provisions to be pursued if the governing boards of either institution decides to erect any of the self-liquidating projects covered by the act but it leaves to those governing boards the decision as to whether they shall build such structures. * * *”
I am still of that opinion and might add that it is within the discretion of the Board as to how they shall finance the building; whether it shall be financed by borrowing or by savings out of “other sources.” Having arrived at such *192conclusion it follows logically (and would if otherwise concluded be highly illogical) that “other sources other than by appropriations by the legislature of the state of Utah” does not preclude using the income from the Land Grant Fund as a credit to be pledged to secure payment of dormitory bonds. There is nothing which expressly or by implication prevents the use of the income from the Land Grant Fund to be pledged for borrowings and their payment together with student building fees and the net revenues from the building. In fact, the Legislature has in' Sections 2 and 3 of Chapter 38 of Title 53 so specified.
There is nothing in that chapter or elsewhere that I know of which requires us to read into the phrase “from other sources” a limitation that “other sources” are, because of subsection (7) of Section 3 of Chapter 38, Title 53, to be limited to revenue and rents from the building which includes student fees. The language in subsection (7) reading that
“the income and revenues * * * from the operation of the building, and are expressly required to be fully sufficient to assure the prompt payment of principal and interest on the bonds as each becomes due * * *”
certainly cannot be construed to prohibit the use of gifts or bequests to the University expressly given for the building of dormitories or for University purposes generally. Certainly such funds, or the income therefrom, could be used or pledged to pay the bonds. What as intended was that the income and revenue derived from the operation of the building are expressly required to be fully sufficient to assure the prompt payment of any net still owing on principal and interest of the bonds as such net on each bond becomes due not otherwise taken care of by gifts, bequests and other sources “other than by [expected] appropriations by the legislature of the state of Utah”.
The limitations on “other sources” is that it must not include an expected appropriation of the Legislature as a *193source. Of course, it could not include a gift, legacy or other source which by its terms was expressly dedicated to some other named special purpose or purposes in connection with the University. But the income from the Land Grant Fund is usable for support and maintenance of the University, which phrase, I take it, is roughly equivalent to “University purposes.”
In so holding I deem it unnecessary to explore the question of the power of the Legislature to narrow, should it choose to do so, the purposes for which the income from the Land Grant Funds may be expended so long as those purposes were includable within “support and maintenance” as I interpret the meaning of that phrase found in Art. X, Sec. 5.