Opinion
No. 28240
Decided February 13, 1941.
Taxation — Classified property taxes — Allotment and distribution — Public libraries entitled to priority only in distribution — Sections 5625-20, 5625-24 and 5639, General Gode — County budget commission — Allotment may not be based upon distribution for preceding year, when.
1. Under the provisions of Sections, 5625-20, 5625-24 and 5639, General Code, qualified public libraries are entitled to priority over municipal corporations, the county and school districts in the semi-annual distribution of the collected proceeds of classified property taxes but not in the allotment of the anticipated proceeds thereof. ( State, ex rel. Rice, Treas., v. Lutz, County Aud., 129 Ohio St. 201, and Board of Education v. Evatt, Tax Commr., 136 Ohio St. 283, approved and followed.)
2. In allotting such anticipated proceeds a county budget commission is not authorized to grant an indirect priority to a public library by basing its allotment upon the distribution of the proceeds of classified property taxes collected during a preceding year.
APPEAL from Board of Tax Appeals.
The two appellants are the Cuyahoga County Budget Commission and the Cleveland Board of Education — the latter as the taxing authority for the Cleveland Public Library. The appellees are the state Tax Commissioner and municipalities and boards of education located in Cuyahoga county.
Under the date of February 1, 1940, and under the provisions of Section 5625-24, General Code, the Cuyahoga County Budget Commission entered an order allotting the anticipated proceeds of the classified property taxes to be collected within that county during that year.
From this order an appeal was perfected to the Board of Tax Appeals where a modification resulted. The journal entry with reference thereto reads in part as follows:
"As to the third ground of appeal, above set forth, the Board of Tax Appeals finds that except as to the increase in the amount of classified property taxes allotted to the county public library for the year 1940 over the amount of classified property taxes allotted to said county public library for the year 1939, and except as to a part of the increase in the 1940 allotment made to the Rocky River Public Library, the increases made in the several allotments of classified property taxes to each and all of the other public libraries in said county named in the order of the County Budget Commission, were substantially equal to the respective amounts of money which said several public libraries lost by reason of the failure of the 1939 classified property tax collections to come up to the classified property tax collection estimate upon which allotments were made by the County Budget Commission for said year 1939; and the Board of Tax Appeals further finds that said increases so made in the allotments of classified property taxes to said several public libraries for the year 1940 were so made by the County Budget Commission illegally for the purpose of compensating said public libraries for their respective distribution losses in the year 1939 at the expense of Cuyahoga county and the municipal corporations therein which would otherwise be entitled to a distribution of such tax moneys for the year 1940, subject to allotment thereto by said County Budget Commission."
The case is in this court upon a direct appeal under the provisions of Section 5611-2, General Code, on the theory that the decision of the Board of Tax Appeals is unreasonable and unlawful.
Messrs. Jones, Day, Cockley Reavis, for appellant, Board of Education of Cleveland City School District. Mr. Frank T. Cullitan, prosecuting attorney, and Mr. Ralph W. Edwards, for appellant, Cuyahoga County Budget Commission.
Mr. Ralph W. Jones, for appellee, city of Shaker Heights.
Mr. George E. Hartshorn, for appellee, city of Cleveland Heights.
Mr. E.A. Binyon, for appellee, city of East Cleveland.
Mr. Paul H. Torbet, for appellee, city of Euclid.
Mr. Charles F. Ross, for appellee, city of Lakewood.
Mr. Richard L. McNelly, for appellee, city of Rocky River.
Mr. Frederick W. Dorn, for appellee, village of Bratenahl.
Messrs. Sayre, Vail Dorn, for appellee, village of Gates Mills.
Mr. Herman L. Vail, for appellee, village of Hunting Valley.
Mr. Chester H. Gurney, for appellee, village of Lyndhurst.
Mr. Earl W. Aurelius, for appellee, village of University Heights.
Counsel agree that this case presents but one question for consideration by this court.
The Board of Tax Appeals found that, with two exceptions, the increases allowed to the various public libraries by the Cuyahoga County Budget Commission in allotting the anticipated proceeds of the classified property taxes for the year 1940 were substantially equal to the losses previously experienced by these libraries by reason of a deficiency in the estimated collection of such taxes for the preceding year of 1939; that these 1940 increases were allowed for the purpose of compensating these libraries for the 1939 losses; that these increases to these libraries were allowed at the expense of that county and the municipalities therein; and that these increases were illegal.
Is this decision of the Board of Tax Appeals unreasonable or unlawful?
To support their sharply conflicting views counsel are unanimous in relying upon the decisions of this court in the two cases of State, ex rel. City of Cleveland Heights, v. Davis, 131 Ohio St. 380, 3 N.E.2d 49, and Board of Edn. of Cleveland Heights City School Dist. v. Evatt, Tax Commr., 136 Ohio St. 283, 25 N.E.2d 453. The syllabus in the first reads as follows:
"The powers vested by the Budget Act (Section 5625-24, General Code) in the County Budget Commission and in the Tax Commission of Ohio with reference to the making of allotments to boards of trustees of public libraries, qualified to participate in the classified property tax fund, are broad and discretionary in nature, and in the absence of a clear abuse thereof, a writ of mandamus will not issue."
Unlike the present matter which is here for review upon an appeal, that was in original action in which the relator asked this court to issue a writ of mandamus finding the Tax Commission of Ohio guilty of an abuse of discretion and compelling it "to require the board of trustees of the eleven libraries to complete their budget requests by setting forth estimates of contemplated revenues for 1936, including cash balances and expected miscellaneous receipts; to compel the Tax Commission to take into account both the estimate of contemplated revenues and the estimate of contemplated expenditures of each library, and to make appropriate reductions of allowances made to each of the libraries; to reduce the amount of the classified property taxes allowed to the six libraries above referred to by $211,000, theretofore added to their allowances in exchange for delinquent real estate taxes levied for 1930 and prior years for the benefit of those libraries, and to increase the allowance to the municipal corporations, including the relator, in a sum equal to the reductions ordered." The court refused to issue a writ of mandamus finding the Tax Commission guilty of an abuse of discretion in these respects.
In the third paragraph of the syllabus in the second case the court expressed the following view:
"When the board of trustees of a public library certifies its budget requirements for any year to its taxing authority, the latter is required by Section 5625-20, General Code, to certify it in the same amount to the county budget commission; and although the budget commission is obliged to fully consider all budget requests, there is no mandatory duty upon it to allow and fix the budget requirements in such amount."
That pronouncement involved the allotting of anticipated proceeds of classified property taxes. In the earlier case of State, ex rel. Rice, Treas., v. Lutz, County Aud., 129 Ohio St. 201, 194 N.E. 423, the question related to the semi-annual distribution of collected proceeds of classified property taxes, and the court held that in this respect the statute gives the libraries priority over municipal corporations, the county and school districts. Thus the libraries enjoy statutory priority in distribution but not in allotment.
The question presented in the instant case is one of allotment alone, but apparently the county budget commission confused this process with that of distribution. Although the two are distinct, the commission, as clearly shown by the evidence, based the libraries' 1940 allotment upon their 1939 distribution. The municipalities complain not only of this but of the further fact that the commission refused to do the same thing for them. It is obvious that if the commission were permitted to follow this formula the libraries would be accorded priority in allotment as well as distribution. This would accomplish indirectly a result not contemplated by the statutes. Hence this court is unanimously of the opinion that the decision of the Board of Tax Appeals is neither unlawful nor unreasonable in disapproving the action of the county budget commission in this respect.
Decision affirmed.
TURNER, WILLIAMS, MATTHIAS, HART, ZIMMERMAN and BETTMAN, JJ., concur.