Board of Education of City School District v. City of New York

88 Misc. 2d 179, 387 N.Y.S.2d 195, 1976 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2923
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 23, 1976
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 88 Misc. 2d 179 (Board of Education of City School District v. City of New York) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Education of City School District v. City of New York, 88 Misc. 2d 179, 387 N.Y.S.2d 195, 1976 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2923 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1976).

Opinion

Abraham J. Gellinoff, J.

This is a CPLR article 78 proceeding in which petitioner, the Board of Education of the City of New York, seeks a judgment compelling respondents, the executive and legislative authorities of the city, to appropriate for petitioner in the city’s 1976-1977 budget the amount required by chapter 132 of the Laws of 1976, commonly called the Stavisky-Goodman Law. Petitioner asserts that the city has appropriated some $115 million less for education than that law requires.

The city contends that the court should not mandate compliance with the Stavisky-Goodman Law because the law, which was passed without a message of necessity (see NY Const, art IX, §2, subd [b], par [2]), violates the home rule provisions of article IX of the State Constitution, and is therefore void. The city also complains that the law is so vague that it is impossible to comply with it. Additionally, the city argues that the law, passed over a veto by the Governor, was not validly enacted, since the State Senate initially voted to sustain the Governor’s veto, and lacked the power thereaf[181]*181ter to reconsider the question. Finally, the city contends, petitioner has failed to comply with various provisions of law requiring that its budget estimate and request be submitted prior to September 1, 1975.

To label the Stavisky-Goodman Law controversial is to understate. Vehement arguments with respect to the wisdom of the enactment have been made to this court both in the papers submitted by the parties, and in the public press (see Shanker, Where We Stand, New York Times, Aug. 8, 1976, § 4, p 7; editorial, New York News, Aug. 10, 1976, p 29). It must therefore be emphasized that the desirability of the Stavisky-Goodman Law is not before this court. It is not within the court’s authority to decide whether, as Mayor Beame asserts, enforcement of the statute would have a "terminal” impact on the city’s ability to continue to function (see article by Nelson Seitel, NYLJ, Aug. 3, 1976, p 1, col 2), or whether, as Deputy Chancellor Gilford maintains, enforcement of the statute is essential to avoid "serious impairment” of petitioner’s "ability to provide for the education of the children of the City.” Those are matters for the Legislature to determine. The court must not permit, and has not permitted, such arguments to influence its resolution of the issues properly before it. And those issues deal not with policy, or politics, but power. Did the Legislature have the power to enact this law? And, if it did, did it properly exercise that power so as to enact a law capable of enforcement? If so, and even if it be an evil law, this court must enforce it. If not, and even if it be a vital law, this court may not enforce it.

The Stavisky-Goodman Law amended section 2576 of the Education Law. It provides that, in its annual expense budget, the City of New York must "appropriate” for public elementary and secondary education at least "an amount equal to the average proportion of the total expense budget of such city, as amended, appropriated for the purposes of the city school district of such city in the three fiscal years of such city immediately preceding the [current] year.” (L 1976, ch 132, §1.)

But this law was not enacted in a vacuum. To understand and apply it, it is necessary to view it within the framework of other statutes, enacted by the same Legislature, which regulate the city’s finances.

The current financial plight of the City of New York has for some time been a matter of common public knowledge, and of [182]*182great public concern. This concern found articulation in a 1975 enactment of the Legislature, upon a message of necessity, which entirely restructured the city’s financial system.

The Legislature found (L 1975, ch 868, § 1) that "the city is unable to obtain the funds needed by the city to continue to provide essential services to its inhabitants or to meet its obligations to the holders of outstanding securities.” Further, it found that the results of such inability to obtain funds would "effectively force the city to stop operating as a viable governmental entity and create a clear and present danger to the health, safety and welfare of its inhabitants.” Moreover, it declared that such danger "is a matter of substantial and imperative state concern.” Accordingly, it concluded that: "This situation is a disaster and creates a state of emergency. To end this disaster, to bring the emergency under control and to respond to the overriding state concern described above, the state must undertake an extraordinary exercise of its police and emergency powers under the state constitution, and exercise controls and supervision over the financial affairs of the city of New York, but in a manner intended to preserve the ability of city officials to determine programs and expenditure priorities within available financial resources.”

The result of these findings was the New York State Financial Emergency Act for the City of New York (L 1975, ch 868).

The act prohibits the city from borrowing or expending funds except in compliance with its provisions (§ 3, subd 1). The act further provides for the creation of the New York State Emergency Financial Control Board (§ 5), having the authority to pass upon a financial plan to be submitted to it by the city. Once the financial plan has been submitted and approved, the city must tailor its budget to comply with the plan, and may not deviate from it without the approval of the board (§ 7, subd 1, par e, cl [i]; § 8, subd 3, par g).

Moreover, the expense budget of the city, and of each of its "covered organizations”, including the board of education (§ 2, subd 5), may not exceed the "level contained in the expense budget adopted by the city * * * for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred seventy-six, as modified or amended to the effective date of this act [September 9, 1975]”, unless such increases are approved by the Emergency Financial Control Board (§ 8, subd 3, par c, cl [iv]).

Thus, by the Financial Emergency Act, and by the financial plan which has since been adopted pursuant to the act, the [183]*183Legislature, and the Emergency Financial Control Board have placed an absolute maximum on the city’s total expense budget. Therefore, any mandate compelling the city to allocate a proportion of its total budget to one particular budget line has the direct and automatic effect of reducing, by an equal amount, one or more other budget lines. For the city may not now, as it might have in the past, borrow, or engage in deficit spending, or increase its total expense budget, in order to meet all the requirements of its basic municipal functions.

Based upon petitioner’s calculations, the Stavisky-Goodman Law requires allocation to petitioner of some 21% of the city’s total expense budget, an amount totaling some 30% of its controllable budget. For the Legislature to compel the city to allocate such a substantial portion of its fixed expense budget to one item has a direct effect on every other item in the budget. To comply with this mandate, the city will be required by the Financial Emergency Act to make further, unanticipated and involuntary decreases in areas of the budget "ranging from police and fire protection, to health care, housing, the maintenance of the municipal hospital system, to care for the disabled, the poverty stricken, the children and the destitute”.

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Related

Board of Education v. City of New York
41 N.Y. 535 (New York Court of Appeals, 1977)
Board of Education of the City School District v. City of New York
54 A.D.2d 630 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1976)

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Bluebook (online)
88 Misc. 2d 179, 387 N.Y.S.2d 195, 1976 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2923, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-education-of-city-school-district-v-city-of-new-york-nysupct-1976.