Court Opinion

ID: 9581320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:13:45.156282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:51.248728
License: Public Domain

Banke, Judge,
dissenting.
It is unquestioned that the city has "[t]he power to establish municipal offices, agencies, and employments; to define, regulate, and alter the powers, duties, qualification, compensation, and tenure of all municipal officers, agents, and employees . . .” Code Ann. § 69-310. However, property rights such as those in contention here, may not be "taken... through indiscriminate, arbitrary or capricious means.” Deason v. DeKalb County Merit Sys. Council, 110 Ga. App. 244 (138 SE2d 183) (1964); City of East Point v. Grayson, 109 Ga. App. 413 (136 SE2d 434) (1964).
By the terms of the city’s charter, appellants, among them police officers and fire and sanitation personnel, are "classified personnel,” whose "term of office or contract of employment... shall continue during good behavior and efficient service . . .” "There is a definite contractual relation between every employee and employer whether the employee is a public officer or not.” Undercofler v. Scott, 220 Ga. 406, 410 (139 SE2d 299, 302) (1964); but see Owens v. Floyd County, 96 Ga. App. 25 (99 SE2d 560) (1957)and cits. The ordinance passed by the 1974 city council gave the appellants a vested right to receive the salaries established in that ordinance unless and until it was properly repealed. The decision not to appropriate funding for the increases falls short of repeal. While it is true "[o]ne council may not by an ordinance bind itself or its successors so as to prevent free legislation in matters of municipal government,” (Code Ann. § 69-202), an ordinance is nevertheless binding until properly repealed. For these reasons I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge *805McMurray and Judge Shulman join in this dissent.