Court Opinion

ID: 9533121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:28:34.229167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:55.398781
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(concurring specially) — I have signed the majority opinion, but am also filing this special concurrence to call attention to the facts of life.
If the state wants federal money, it meets the federal requirements.
If the school districts want state money for building construction or other purposes, they meet the state requirements.
It is as simple as that! The facade of local autonomy, and the development of plans by the county committee are seen in their true perspective when such a plan does not coincide with the requirements of the state board.
It is quite apparent that the amounts desired by the state board for the share of the Cosmopolis district ($329,865) *473and for the share of the Aberdeen district ($959,670) in the high school construction costs were almost exactly in the same proportion as their assessed valuation.1 What the assessed valuation ratio may have lacked in fairness and equity, it made up in ease of ascertainment. I am not impressed with the suggestion by counsel that it took a great deal of expertise to arrive at the amounts fixed by the state board.
Certainly, in the interest of local autonomy, I would have preferred to accept the plan of the county committee, their figures being weighted by other factors than assessed valuation, — such as the attendance in the high school from each district, i.e., the service rendered and the value received.
However, I am unable to say that the state board’s assessed valuation formula was arbitrary or capricious. Its use within a district is accepted with general approval, i.e., school taxes are levied on the basis of the value of your property and not on the number of children you have in school.
If the Aberdeen and Cosmopolis school districts wanted state matching money for their high school building, they had to meet the state board’s requirements, as they have done. Whether or not there should be state aid for the building of schools, without the surrender of local autonomy, is a problem for the legislature.
Weaver and Hamilton, JJ., concur with Hill, J.

 The assessed valuation of the Cosmopolis district in 1961 was $7,063,928 and that of the Aberdeen district was $20,546,298.