Court Opinion

ID: 9796585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:00:28.840481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:38.160651
License: Public Domain

*316BRYNER, Justice,
dissenting.
I disagree with the court's decision to uphold the mayor's power to reduce the school district budget by veto. In my view, the court's opinion misinterprets Alaska law and disregards settled standards for resolving conflicts between state and municipal law. I would hold that our law narrowly delegates the power of school-budget approval to the assembly alone, expressly insulating its actions from reduction by veto.
I. STATE LAW PRECLUDES A MAYORAL VETO.
A. Constitutional and Statutory Framework
Public education in Alaska is a function of state government. Article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution provides that "[the legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State." 1 We have consistently interpreted this provision as "a clear 'mandate for pervasive state authority in the field of education'" 2 The legislature has assigned primary responsibility for exercising this authority to local school boards.3 Because municipal revenues make up a large portion of a school district's budget, the legislature has also decided "to give municipal assemblies certain powers with regard to school board budgetary and accounting processes." 4 But the legislature has delegated none of the school board's budgeting power to mayors.
Although Anchorage is a home rule city, AS 14.14.065 requires it to be treated as a borough in its dealings with the Anchorage School District's school board:
The relationships between the school board of a city school district and the city council and executive or administrator are governed in the same manner as provided in AS 14.14.060 for the school board of a borough school district and the borough assembly and executive or administrator.
Alaska Statute 14.14.060, the statute mentioned in the above-quoted provision, delineates a borough school district's relationship to its corresponding borough government. Subsection .060(c) expressly covers school district budgets and the appropriation of borough school funds, conferring certain narrow powers on the assembly and vesting it with specific responsibilities:
(c) Except as otherwise provided by municipal ordinance, the borough school board shall submit the school budget for the following school year to the borough assembly by May 1 for approval of the total amount. Within 30 days after receipt of the budget the assembly shall determine the total amount of money to be made available from local sources for school purposes and shall furnish the school board with a statement of the sum to be made available. If the assembly does not, within 30 days, furnish the school board with a statement of the sum to be made available, the amount requested in the budget is automatically approved. Except as otherwise provided by municipal ordinance, by June 830, the assembly shall appropriate the amount to be made available from local sources from money available for the purpose.
B. Alaska Statute 14.14.060(c) Gives Certain School-Budget Powers to the Assembly, but Not to the Mayor.
The plain language of AS 14.14.060(c) delegates budgetary powers and duties directly to the assembly-not to the borough as a whole; not to its mayor; not to a combination of the assembly and the mayor. The statute's narrow scope of delegation becomes even clearer when we consider subsection .060(c) in light of AS 14.14.060's other subsections; their delegating language expressly *317differentiates between a borough's assembly and its administrator.
For instance, subsection .060(a) states that "[the borough assembly may by ordinance require that all school money be deposited in a centralized treasury"; but the subsection then specifies that "[t/he borough administrator shall have the custody of, invest, and manage all money in the centralized treasury." 5 Similarly, subsection .060(f) makes the school board responsible for custodial services and routine maintenance, but directs that all major rehabilitation and repair be provided by "[the borough assembly through the borough administrator." 6 These provisions demonstrate beyond cavil that, in delegating specified school district powers to local government through AS 14.14.060, the legislature knew how to distinguish between the assembly and the mayor and that it fully appreciated the need to do so explicitly when it wanted to draw that distinction.
Common sense and plain meaning, then, point strongly to the conclusion that, in assigning the power to approve a borough school district's budget to "the assembly," the legislature meant just that.
The court shrugs off this evidence of legislative intent, theorizing that subsection .060(c)'s narrow delegation to the assembly implicitly carries with it the mayor's legislative power: "[Als between the school board and the municipality, the legislature chose to delegate the final budget approval power to the municipality. In effect, the municipality has allowed its mayor to share some of the assembly's influence over the amount appropriated." 7
But the court's theory strains plain meaning, especially when subsection .060(a) is viewed-as it must be viewed-in conjunction with AS 14.14.065. The latter provision requires that in a city like Anchorage "[the relationships between the school board of [the] city school district and the city council and executive or administrator" must be "governed in the same manner as provided [for boroughs] in AS 14.14.060." By recognizing that AS 14.14.060 governs "relationships"-in other words, that it describes the powers of a city's "school board," its "city council," and its "executive or administrator" in relation to each other-AS 14.14.065 forecloses the possibility that AS 14.14.060(c)'s delegation of power to "the assembly" was intended to encompass powers belonging to the mayor; for in a provision defining the powers of the "assembly" in relation to the "administrator," each term necessarily excludes the other.8
The court's theory also violates AS 14.14.060's core purpose. The court correctly notes that municipalities contribute large sums of local source funds to the school district budget and therefore have a legitimate stake in the school-budget process.9 But the municipality's stake in local source funding hardly justifies reading AS 14.14.060(c) as a provision that abdicates state control over the school board budget and allows the municipality to treat the board as a de facto municipal ageney. State law creates the school board as an independent governmental body;10 and under the Alaska Constitution's public education clause,11 the state has an overriding interest in preserving the board's independence, so that its actions will be faithful to "[this constitutional mandate for pervasive state authority in the field of education." 12 Moreover, state revenues comprise the lion's share of a school district budget; even in Anchorage, where local source contributions outpace those of smaller municipalities, state appro*318priations pay more than seventy percent of the annual school district budget.13
Thus, while the city undeniably has a legitimate stake in the school district's budgetary process, the state's interest is both constitutionally and economically superior. And because a school board's ability to capture adequate state funding depends on an early and reliable determination of local source funding, the board has a critical need to ensure that the municipal contribution is promptly determined, without being derailed by local politics. Alaska Statute 14.14.060(c) reflects these concerns: it strives to afford municipalities an opportunity to determine the amount of their local source contributions, but at the same time it protects the state's vital and overriding interest in early certainty.
Despite the court's assertion to the contrary, nowhere does AS 14.14.060(c) "expressly" give municipalities "the power to approve or reduce the total amounts of the proposed budget and local appropriation"; 14 rather, it "expressly" delegates power only to "the assembly." And in spite of the court's view that AS 14.14.060(c) "does not try to describe comprehensively what happens" when a school board submits its budget to the assembly for approval,15 the statute does just that.
The first sentence of subsection .060(c) specifies that the board must submit its budget for the following school year to the assembly by May 1.16 While the first sentence suggests that the budget is submitted "for approval of the total amount," the next sentence of subsection .060(c) makes it clear that the assembly's approval power is limited to determining the amount of the local source contribution; and to exercise this power, the assembly must make its determination and notify the board within thirty days.17 The subsection's third sentence then specifies what happens if the assembly fails to act as prescribed: the school board's proposed local source contribution is automatically deemed approved.18 Finally, the fourth sentence of subsection .060(c) provides that onee the approved amount of local source funding is fixed, the assembly must appropriate that amount no later than June 30.19
Thus, AS 14.14.060(c) does "describe comprehensively what happens": it defines a two-step process for assembly action on the school board budget; the first step is optional, the second mandatory. First, if it acts promptly to make the determination and inform the board, the assembly may approve the amount of the local source contribution; failing that, the amount stated in the school board budget is automatically approved. Second, once the approval ccecurs-by action or inaction-the assembly must appropriate the approved amount by June 1; the statute allows no other amount, so the issue of a mayoral veto becomes moot.
Neither the tight and comprehensive structure of this statute nor its underlying purpose leaves room for the "extra political wrinkle" of a mayoral veto. Assuming, then, that the court is correct in construing the Anchorage charter to "reallocate some of the assembly's legislative power," 20 this realloca*319tion violates the letter and spirit of AS 14.14.060(c) and is therefore invalid.
C. Alaska Statute 29.20.270(c) Explicitly Prohibits a School-Budget Veto.
Alaska's laws regulating municipal government, codified in Title 29 of the Alaska Statutes, confirm the legislature's intent to use the plain meaning of "assembly" in Title 14's provisions establishing relationships between school boards, assemblies, and mayors. Alaska Statute 29.20.270(c)(1) forbids a may- or from using the veto to "strike or reduce . appropriation items in a school budget ordinance." 21
Although the court denies it, this unambiguous provision certainly does "expressly prohibit the municipality from conferring [the vetol power on its mayor."22 While the court attempts to avoid the express meaning of the statute by finding an implied exemption for home rule municipalities under AS 29.10.200,23 the attempt is unconvincing.
Alaska Statute 29.10.200 provides that "Iolnly the following provisions of this title [AS 29.] apply to home rule municipalities as prohibitions on acting otherwise than as provided." The statute then lists fifty-nine provisions of Title 29 that directly limit home rule municipalities from "acting otherwise" than as required therein. This list omits reference to AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s ban on vetoes of school district appropriation items.24 Based on the omission, the court infers that subsection .270(c)(1)'s prohibition does not apply to home rule municipalities.25 But the court draws this inference too hastily. It overlooks the necessary implications of AS 14.14.065's command that cities be treated in the same manner as boroughs are treated under AS 14.14.060 for purposes of determining relationships between their school boards, their assemblies, and their mayors.26
The question framed by AS 29.10.200 is whether its omission of the school-budget veto prohibition frees home rule cities to act "otherwise than as provided" by the prohibition. The omission admittedly precludes AS 29.20.270(c)(1) from applying directly to a home rule city. But we must next ask whether the veto ban might apply indirectly. The answer to this question is "Yes." As already mentioned, AS 14.14.0650 and 14.14.060 specify that for school-budget purposes, the rules governing relationships between a home rule city's school board, assembly, and mayor are the same rules that apply to ordinary boroughs. For these purposes, then, AS 14.14.065 makes a home rule city "a *320borough governed in the same manner as provided in AS 14.14.060." 27
Since AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s ban on school district vetoes restricts a general-law borough administrator's veto power when a borough assembly exercises its delegated authority to modify or approve a school budget under AS 14.14.060(c), and because AS 14.14.065 unambiguously regards home rule cities as boroughs in their relationships with their school boards, assemblies, and mayors, AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s school-budget veto ban attaches to a home rule city: the city is a functional borough under AS 14.14.065 and AS 14.14.060.
Hence, AS 29.20.270(c)'s omission from AS 29.10.200 is inconsequential. Far from indicating that "the legislature impliedly chose to let each home rule municipality decide whether to give its mayor the power to veto or reduce school district budget ordinances," 28 this omission evinces the legislature's recognition that subsection .270(c)(1)'s veto ban did not need to be listed in AS 29.10.200. Again, home rule cities are ordinary boroughs, not home rule cities, for purposes of AS 14.14.060(c); as such, they are governed by the veto ban regardless of its omission from AS 29.10.200.29 And even if paragraph .270(c)(1)'s prohibition did not apply to home rule municipalities, a mayoral veto would not be authorized under AS 14.14.060(c)'s narrow delegation of power to the assembly alone. The court errs in concluding otherwise.
II. THE COURT HAS APPLIED THE WRONG STANDARD IN CONSTRUING STATE LAW TO ALLOW MAYORAL VETOES OF SCHOOL BUDGET ORDINANCES.
The court compounds these errors by applying the wrong standard to determine whether a home rule mayor's school-budget veto impermissibly conflicts with the requirements of state law. In selecting the applicable standard, the court assigns predominate weight to the Alaska Constitution's home rule clause, which gives home rule municipalities "all legislative powers not prohibited by law or by charter." 30 Relying on this constitutional language, the court declares that, "[iJn deciding whether the state has limited the powers of home rule municipalities, we first look for prohibitions, not grants of power." 31 While recognizing that state law can sometimes restrict a home rule municipality's power implicitly, the court reasons that an implied restriction can only occur when a " 'statute and ordinance are so substantially irreconcilable that one cannot be given its substantive effect if the other is to be accorded the weight of law'" 32 This standard leads the court to uphold the municipality's position because, in the court's view, "a mayoral veto over the school budget does not irreconcilably impede the purpose of Title 14," 33
But the court has fashioned a constitutionally lopsided standard: while heeding the municipality's call to honor the constitution's broad grant of home rule power, this standard all but ignores Repasky's equally compelling call to enforce constitutional language granting the state exclusive control over public education.
As already discussed, the Alaska Constitution's public education clause expressly provides that "[the legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State." 34 Our cases hold that "[this constitutional mandate for pervasive state authority in the *321field of education could not be more clear." 35 We have emphasized that the public education clause is "mandatory," "not permissive"; and we have declared this provision to be "unqualified" in specifying that "no other unit of government shares responsibility or authority." 36 For these reasons we have sternly warned against inferring a surrender of the state's constitutional prerogatives from any law that transfers limited educational powers to local government:
That the legislature has seen fit to delegate certain educational functions to local school boards in order that Alaska schools might be adapted to meet the varying conditions of different localities does not diminish this constitutionally mandated state control over education.[37]
In the ease before us, then, when we gauge how broadly to apply AS 14.14.060(c)'s delegation of power to "the assembly," we must use a standard that acknowledges the tensions between two competing constitutional mandates: article VII's public education clause and article X's home rule clause. Yet by holding that the mayoral veto must survive unless it "irreconcilably impede[s] the purposes of Title 14," the court inexplicably emphasizes only one of these mandates-the home rule clause.38
The court's standard might serve well when used to resolve conflicts between municipal home rule powers and ordinary statutes. But we have never used it to decide the validity of home rule actions that conflict with state laws rooted in the public education clause. To the contrary, our cases involving educational functions articulated a standard that would allow us to interpret a statute like AS 14.14.060(c) as an implicit delegation of power only if the delegated power would affirmatively promote the state's educational purposes.
Beginning in Chugach Electric Ass'n v. City of Anchorage,39 we adopted a "local activity rule" as "an expedient method" to apply when home rule ordinances "either directly or collaterally impede ... implementation" of policies expressed in state laws.40
A year later, in Macauley v. Hildebrand,41 we considered a case involving a conflict between a home rule charter provision that required a school district to use the borough accounting system and a statute that allowed centralized accounting only if the school board consented.42 Reviewing the test that we adopted in Chugach Electric, we noted that "the determination of whether a home rule municipality can enforce an ordinance which conflicts with a state statute" hinged on "whether the matter regulated is of statewide or local concern." 43 Applying this formulation, we struck the charter provision, ruling that "[the outcome of the local activity test in the case at bar is dictated by Article VII, Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution [the public education clause]." 44
We next dealt with conflicting state and home rule provisions in Jefferson v. State.45 There, we backed away from Chugach Elec-trie's local activity rule. Using the constitution's home rule clause as the appropriate starting point for analysis, we enunciated for the first time a test based on the notion of substantial irreconcilability:
The test we derive from Alaska's constitutional provisions is one of prohibition, rather than traditional tests such as statewide versus local concern. A municipal ordinance is not necessarily invalid in Alaska because it is inconsistent or in conflict with a state statute. The question rests on *322whether the exercise of authority has been prohibited to municipalities. The prohibition must be either by express terms or by implication such as where the statute and ordinance are so substantially irreconcilable that one cannot be given its substantive effect if the other is to be accorded the weight of law,[46]
The Jefferson test resembles the standard that the court applies here, and that test undeniably gives preference to municipal laws having close ties to the home rule clause. But Jefferson qualified its endorsement of the substantial irreconcilability test, declaring that this standard must give way when, as here, a home rule power butts against the mandate of the Alaska Constitution's public education clause.
The public education clause was not directly at issue in Jefferson. The conflict there arose between a city charter provision governing disposition of public utility assets and a state law precluding a city located within an organized borough from disposing of such assets after the borough exercised areawide power over the subject.47 Applying the "substantially irreconcilable" test, Jefferson resolved this conflict in favor of the state, finding the city's action to be irreconcilable with the state statute because the statute's "prohibition [was] express." 48 But Jefferson did not stop its analysis there. It proceeded to examine its newly adopted standard in light of this court's earlier case law, emphasizing that "(olur decision ... is in accord with this court's opinions relating to cases of conflict between local ordinances and state enactments." 49
Jefferson's discussion of Macauley v. Hildebrand is especially germane to the present controversy because the conflict in Macauley involved a statutory delegation of educational power implicating the public education clause in much the same way that AS 14.14.060(c) implicates the clause here. In discussing Macawley, Jefferson expressly recognized that conflicts like these present exceptional cireumstances in which the home rule clause must ordinarily yield:
The statute involved in Macauley was an express delegation by the state legislature to municipal corporations of a constitutionally mandated legislative power. We reasoned that the language of the state constitution mandating maintenance of a school system by the state vested the legislature with pervasive control over public education. Thus, home rule municipalities were precluded from exercising power over education unless, and to the extent, delegated by the state legislature; and the local ordinance was therefore overridden by the statute.[50]
Jefferson's public education test, then, is the obverse of the test that the court espouses here: to invalidate a municipal action, the test looks not for an express prohibition or irreconcilable conflict, but merely for the absence of a specific delegation. Under the test that Jefferson articulates for public education clause cases, then, state law has the preference; it prevails in the absence of express delegation: "[HJome rule municipalities [are] precluded from exercising power over education" except when that power is "delegated by the state legislature." 51
Our most recent decision addressing a home rule city's exercise of delegated public education power, Tunley v. Municipality of Anchorage School District,52 refines Jefferson's public education clause test by describing the circumstances in which an implied delegation of power may be found.
Tunley considered the scope of AS 14.14.060(d)'s provision vesting municipal as*323semblies with authority to "determine the location of school buildings."53 The Anchorage School Board was sued because it closed two schools without assembly approval.54 In rejecting a challenge to the board's unapproved action; we declined to read subsection .060(d)'s delegation to the assembly of power to determine "location" as carrying with it an implied power over closure.55 We explained our narrow interpretation of subsection .060(d) by noting that, although the provision's express delegation of approval power over location was consistent with the overall purpose of AS 14.14.060, "[tlhis statutory consistency is not furthered by ... assembly power to determine which schools are to discontinue operations." Tuniley thus enforced section .060's express delegation of the power to locate but suggested that the seetion could not be interpreted to extend an implied or inherent delegation of the power to close unless that power was necessary to promote consistency with the section's underlying educational purpose.
Applying these principles here dictates the conclusion that AS 14.14.060(c)'s express delegation of approval power only to "the assembly" cannot be construed to imply a broader delegation of veto power to the may- or. For a veto power of that kind would do nothing to promote consistency with AS 14.14.060's basic goal.
As the court itself acknowledges, the veto power adds a new wrinkle to the school budget process-"an extra political element" that was not previously there.56 Although this extra wrinkle undeniably serves local political interests by enhancing mayoral control over the school budget, it adds nothing of benefit to the statutorily established school budget process: the added political wrinkle is neither necessary nor helpful to promote consistency with any of AS 14.14.060(c)'s educational purposes-the only purposes properly at issue here. Indeed, as we have seen, one of subsection .060(c)'s most prominent goals is to keep the school-budget process wrinkle free. At best, then, this new political element might prove to be a minor inconvenience to the school budget process.
And at worst, of course, the veto power might prove to be far more than a mere wrinkle or minor hindrance. While local school districts are in one sense a part of municipal government, in another sense-their constitutional and statutory sense-they are independent state institutions that work locally with municipal government.57 And as this court has previously emphasized, "[njo-where is the independent status of the Anchorage School Board more apparent than in school system budgetary matters." 58
The statutory delegation of power at issue here, AS 14.14.060(c), attempts to strike a careful balance between the state's vital constitutional interest in maintaining pervasive authority over public education and the legitimate local interest in ensuring "that Alaska schools might be adapted to meet the varying conditions of different localities [in a way that] does not diminish this constitutionally mandated state control over education." 59 By extending subsection .060(c)'s reach beyond the statute's express delegation to the assembly and nudging school-budget approval power within the city executive's sphere of control, the court unavoidably dilutes the school district's independence. The court's action, tilts the original balance of powers decidedly away from pervasive state authority and school district autonomy. It distorts, rather than promotes, subsection .060(c)'s educational goal.
Apart from causing this kind of institutional distortion, shifting the balance of state and municipal power will also unleash anomalous procedural consequences. Whether the may- or plays any role in the school-budget approval process will become an arbitrary exercise in assembly timing: the assembly can choose to leave the mayor out of the loop *324entirely by delaying its approval action until the last moment or by failing to act at all; 60 and if the assembly includes the mayor by acting promptly, it risks excluding itself if it ultimately is unable to override a veto.
Finally, distributing the assembly's share of school-budget power is bound to have awkward institutional ramifications. A school board acts as its district's legislative body.61 Subsection .060(c) narrowly delegates this power to the assembly, effectively designating the municipality's legislative body as the board's legislative adjunct. But in this adjunct capacity, the assembly serves the same executive as the board: the school district superintendent. By introducing the mayor to this institutional mix, the court adds a second executive head to the district's ad-juncet legislative body, creating a patchwork anatomy that invites institutional turmoil. The district's adjunct legislative body now must respond to conflicting signals emanating from separate heads on opposite sides of its torso.
I seriously doubt that any local government would have-or could have-devised such a strange process intentionally. And I am convinced that a state government dedicated to maintaining an independent local school system under Alaska's "constitutional mandate for pervasive state authority in the field of education" 62 should not tolerate its continued existence.
III. CONCLUSION
Without a trace of irony, the court foretells the consequences of its decision: "Allowing the mayor to veto the school budget ordinance puts the appropriation process on footing equivalent ... to that of other municipal budgets." 63 Yet Alaska's constitution requires school districts statewide to stand on their own feet. By treating the school budget like "other municipal budgets" the veto power correspondingly treats the school board like an ordinary municipal agency, thereby divesting the board of its constitutionally mandated independence. As the court itself all but concedes, then, its decision spells the end for independent local schools in home rule municipalities. I dissent from the court's opinion and would affirm the superior court's decision holding that AS 14.14.060(c) does not authorize school-budget vetoes.

. See also AS 14.03.010 (establishing "in the state a system of public schools to be administered and maintained as provided in this title").

. Tunley v. Municipality of Anchorage Sch. Dist., 631 P.2d 67, 77 (Alaska 1980) (quoting Macauley v. Hildebrand, 491 P.2d 120, 122 (Alaska 1971)); see also Jefferson v. State, 527 P.2d 37, 44 (Alaska 1974).

. See Tunley, 631 P.2d at 76.

. Id.

. Emphasis added.

. Emphasis added.

. Majority Opinion at 313.

. In other words, to adopt the court's interpretation would require the nonsensical conclusion that, in describing the powers of the "assembly" in relation to the powers of the "administrator," section .060 means "administrator" when it says "administrator," but means "assembly and/or administrator" when it says "assembly."

. See, eg., Majority Opinion at 309, 310.

. See, eg., Tunley v. Municipality of Anchorage Sch. Dist., 631 P.2d 67, 76 (Alaska 1980).

. Alaska Const. art. VII, § 1.

. Id.

. See Majority Opinion at 304-305.

. Majority Opinion at 314.

. Majority Opinion at 312.

. "Except as otherwise provided by municipal ordinance, the borough school board shall submit the school budget for the following school year to the borough assembly by May 1 for approval of the total amount."

. "Within 30 days after receipt of the budget the assembly shall determine the total amount of money to be made available from local sources for school purposes and shall furnish the school board with a statement of the sum to be made available."

. "If the assembly does not, within 30 days, furnish the school board with a statement of the sum to be made available, the amount requested in the budget is automatically approved."

. "Except as otherwise provided by municipal ordinance, by June 30, the assembly shall appropriate the amount to be made available from local sources from money available for the purpose."

. Majority Opinion at 313.

. AS 29.20.270 provides, in relevant part:
(a) Except as provided in (c)-(e) of this section, the mayor may veto an ordinance, resolution, motion, or other action of the governing body and may strike or reduce appropriation items.
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(c) The veto does not extend to
(1) appropriation items in a school budget or-dinancel[.]
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(e) The veto does not extend to an ordinance adopted under AS 04.11.501. This subsection applies to home rule and general law municipalities.

. Majority Opinion at 311.

. Majority Opinion at 310-311.

. AS 29.10.200 lists, in numerical order, provisions in Title 29 that apply to home rule municipalities and that restrict municipal power. Subsection .200(15) lists AS 29.20.270(e), which prohibits vetoes of local-option elections conducted under AS 04.11.501, as a provision applicable to home rule municipalities. See note 21, supra. The section .200 list mentions no other subsection of AS 29.20.270, thereby implicitly excluding subsection .270(c)'s ban on mayoral vetoes of school-budget appropriations as a Title 29 prohibition that directly applies to home rule municipalities.

. See Majority Opinion at 312-313.

. AS 29.20.270(c)(l)'s veto ban and AS 29.10.200's list of exemptions were originally enacted in 1972 as part of the 1972 Municipal Code Revision Act. See 118 SLA 1972. The 1972 revision recodified but did not substantively amend AS 14.14.065 or the forerunner of AS 14.14.060. See former AS 14.14.065 (1970); former AS 07.15.330(d) (1971). Because AS 14.14.060(c)'s provisions predate AS 29.20.270(c)(1)'s veto ban and the home rule exemptions arising under AS 29.10.200, there is no basis for concluding that the references to boroughs and cities in AS 14.14.065 and AS 14.14.060(c) would exclude home rule cities or boroughs. For purposes of determining relations between the assembly and mayor in school district matters, then, AS 14.14.065 appears to require all cities-home rule and general law-to be treated as an ordinary borough would be treated under AS 14.14.060(c).

. AS 14.14.065.

. Majority Opinion at 312.

. In contrast, AS 29.10.200(15) does specifically list subsection (e) of AS 29.20.270 as a provision that applies to home rule municipalities. Subsection .270(e) prohibits mayors from vetoing a local option "ordinance adopted under AS 04.11.501." See note 21, supra. Since no provision of Title 4 would independently apply subsection .270(e)'s veto ban to a home rule city, it was necessary for the legislature to list the ban in AS 29.10.200(15) if the legislature intended it to apply to home rule cities.

. Majority Opinion at 305-306; Alaska Const. art. X, § 11.

. Majority Opinion at 310.

. Majority Opinion at 311 (quoting Jefferson v. State, 527 P.2d 37, 43 (Alaska 1974)).

. Majority Opinion at 315.

. Alaska Const. art. VII, § 1.

. Macauley v. Hildebrand, 491 P.2d 120, 122 (Alaska 1971).

. Id. (emaphasis added).

. Id.

. Majority Opinion at 315.

. 476 P.2d 115 (Alaska 1970).

. Id. at 122.

. 491 P.2d 120 (Alaska 1971).

. Id. at 120-21.

._ Id. at 122.

._ Id.

. 527 P.2d 37 (Alaska 1974).

. Id. at 43 (footnote omitted).

. Id. at 41-42.

. Id. at 43.

. Id. at 44.

. Id. (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).

. Id. Notably, Jefferson recognized that the statute at issue in Macauley directly prohibited the challenged home rule charter provision at issue there and that the Macauley court could have resolved the conflict on that narrow basis, but elected not to: "Although the statutory prohibition in Macauley was direct, this court offered another reason for striking down the questioned ordinance." Jefferson, 527 P.2d at 44.

. 631 P.2d 67 (Alaska 1981).

. Id. at 76.

. See id. at 69-170.

. Id. at 76.

. Majority Opinion at 314.

. See Tunley, 631 P.2d at 75.

. Id.

. Macauley v. Hildebrand, 491 P.2d 120, 122 (Alaska 1971).

. See AS 14.14.060(c).

. See Tunley, 631 P.2d at 75.

. Macauley, 491 P.2d at 122.

. Majority Opinion at 314.