Court Opinion

ID: 9859113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 18:43:23.206063+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:06:22.729053
License: Public Domain

VERNIERO, J.,
concurring.
The issue in this case is whether the Legislature properly has delegated its taxing authority to the board of school estimate (board), a statutorily created entity. Warren County’s board consists of three freeholders and two persons selected by the board of trustees of Warren County College. Freeholders, of course, are popularly elected to their positions, whereas college trustee members are not. The board’s configuration makes possible that which occurred in this case, namely, that the two non-elected trustee members would join an elected freeholder to mandate expenditures contrary to the will of a majority of the elected freeholders.
The Court concludes that the board’s action in mandating those expenditures is impermissible. It reaches that result “[bjecause the college was established without an opportunity for public input as contemplated by the legislative scheme, and because the statutory power to mandate appropriations through the certification authority of the college’s board of school estimate impacts the freeholders’ authority to levy local taxes[.]” Ante at 435, 824 A.2d 1074. I agree entirely with that rationale. Irrespective of any other possible infirmity, Warren County’s failure to gain public input when establishing its county college rendered the board without authority to act in the manner sought here.
Although it need go no further to dispose of this appeal, the Court proceeds to conclude that had such public input been obtained, then the board’s action would have passed constitutional muster. Ante at 445, 824 A.2d 1074. And there is where I part company from my colleagues. I would not express a view concerning the board’s authority in the event that Warren County’s voters had been given the opportunity merely to file a petition concerning the college’s existence. I would reserve that question *447for another day and would decide it only if necessary to complete an adjudication when the issue squarely is presented. See Donadio v. Cunningham, 58 N.J. 309, 325-26, 277 A.2d 375 (1971) (emphasizing that “a court should not reach and determine a constitutional issue unless absolutely imperative in the disposition of the litigation”).
Moreover, even if voters had approved the college as a result of a ballot referendum, I would not express a view concerning the impact of that approval on the delegation issue that is at the heart of this case. As was conceded at oral argument, under an extreme application of its purported authority, a board can force a county to finance virtually unlimited expenditures. Without further analysis that would include a review of the precise ballot question in a given case, I would not conclude that voters have delegated authority to the board, without approval from a majority of the elected freeholders, to finance that degree of spending simply by approving a college’s creation.
Thus, I would affirm the Appellate Division’s judgment solely on the basis that voters were denied the opportunity to participate in the formation of the college in the first instance. We need not— and, without further analysis, should not — decide whether such participation would have cured the board’s constitutional defect.
For affirming — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices COLEMAN, LONG, VERNIERO, LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, and ALBIN — 7.
Opposed — None.