Dixon v. Laguardia

166 Misc. 889, 2 N.Y.S.2d 466
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 1, 1938
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 166 Misc. 889 (Dixon v. Laguardia) 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
Dixon v. Laguardia, 166 Misc. 889, 2 N.Y.S.2d 466 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1938).

Opinion

McGeehan, J.

The petitioner is an employee of the city of New York. He alleges that on October 29, 1937, the board of estimate and apportionment adopted a budget for the city of New York for the year 1938, which was thereafter approved without change by the board of aldermen, and which fixed his salary for that year in the sum of $4,000. He demands that the payrolls be accordingly certified in that amount. He is met with the objection that the budget to which he refers is no budget at all, since it had never been legally adopted, and that the legal budget of the city of New York for the year 1938 is a budget which, on January 11, 1938, was adopted by the council of the city of New York, in which budget the annual salary for the petitioner’s position is fixed at $3,000.

[891]*891The New York City Charter (§§ ill-126, 952) indicates that the first budget which the new council is authorized to adopt is the budget for the year 1939. However, if on January 11, 1938, there was in existence a legal budget of the city of New York for the year 1938, there was no authority in the council of the city of New York to adopt any other budget, even if it otherwise would have had such power.

Under the Greater New York Charter (Laws of 1901, chap. 466, § 226), as amended by Local Law No. 11 of 1933 (p. 105), the power to make a budget was vested in the board of estimate and apportionment and the board of aldermen. In section 226-c, added by Local Laws of 1933 (p. 106), is specifically detailed the various steps necessary to be undertaken in the making of that budget. Briefly, these steps were:

(1) The preparation of an executive budget, giving the sources and estimated revenues of the city and county governments and the amounts required for the administration, maintenance and operation of the said governments. It was the duty of the director of the budget to prepare this executive budget with the co-operation of the various heads of departments, the comptroller, and the president of the board of taxes and assessments. (2) On or before the second day of October, the mayor was required to submit such executive budget to the board of estimate and apportionment, and the board was required to meet in executive session and consider such budget. Such budget, together with a message from the mayor of comment and explanation, was required to be published on or before October fifth in printed form so as to be available for public discussion. (3) The board of estimate and apportionment was required to make a budget on or before November first. The chronological sequence of the steps antecedent to the making of such a budget was specifically detailed in the charter, as follows: The board of estimate and apportionment was required to prepare for public discussion on or before October tenth a tentative budget. Any differences between the tentative budget and the executive budget were to be printed as an annex to the tentative budget. (4) The board was required to hold public hearings on such tentative budget. (5) After the hearings on the tentative budget had been completed, the budget ripened into a proposed budget, which the board was required to file with its secretary on or before October twentieth. (6) Thereafter, the board was empowered to decrease or eliminate any item in the proposed budget and was required to hold public hearings on changes. This step was required to be completed by October thirty-first. (7) The board was required no later than October thirty-first, to finally adopt the budget.

[892]*892(8) The budget thus having been made by the board of estimate and apportionment, was required to be submitted within five days to the board of aldermen. (9) The mayor was then required to call a special meeting of the board of aldermen to consider such budget. (10) The board of aldermen was required to continue the consideration of such budget from day to day, but no longer than twenty days, until it finally acted thereon. Failure of the board of aldermen to act upon'the budget within that time was deemed to be a final adoption of the budget as submitted by the board of estimate and. apportionment. The board of aldermen was empowered to reduce, but not to increase, the items in the budget, nor could it vary the terms and conditions of, or insert any new items in the budget. (11) In the event that the board of aldermen reduced any item as fixed by the board of estimate and apportionment, such action of the board of aldermen was subject to the veto power of the mayor. (12) Such a veto might be overridden by three-fourths vote of the board of aldermen, and, if not so overriden, the items as fixed by the board of estimate and apportionment stood as part of the budget. (13) On or before December twenty-fifth the budget, as thus finally adopted, was required to be certified by the mayor, comptroller and city clerk. (14) On or before December thirty-first the budget was required to be filed in the office of the comptroller and published in the City Record.

The journal of the proceedings of the board of estimate and apportionment, in so far as the same concerns itself with the making of the budget of 1938, as adopted by it on October 29, 1937, was submitted in evidence upon the hearing of this motion. In that journal is revealed the following:

On October 2, 1937, the mayor presented lo a special meeting of the board of estimate the executi\re budget, together with his message of comment and explanation. He then moved that the executive budget, as presented, be received by the board and referred to executive session. The motion gained eleven affirmative votes, no one voting in opposition thereto. Following the above resolution, another resolution was offered by the mayor that “ pursuant to the provisions of the Greater New York Charter, as amended by Local Law No. 11 for the year 1933, and section 952 of the New York City Charter,” public hearings for taxpayers in regard to the budgets for the years 1938 and the first six months of 1939, as tentatively prepared, be fixed for October 13, 1937, and October 14, 1937, and that public hearings on said budgets, as proposed for adoption, be fixed for October 25, 1937, and October 26, 1937, and that the secretary of the board be directed to have published in the City Record a notice of said hearings and an [893]*893invitation to the taxpayers of the city to appear and be heard. This resolution was likewise adopted by eleven votes.

On October 6, 1937, at a special meeting of the board of estimate and following a statement by the comptroller which recommended that the comptroller’s estimate of the general fund revenues for 1938, as submitted by him, should stand despite criticism of that estimate by the mayor in his message of October second, the mayor offered a resolution to adopt as the tentative budgets for the year 1938 and the first six months of 1939, the executive budgets submitted by the mayor, and further that the director of the budget be directed to correct such clerical and typographical errors as' might be found in said tentative budgets. This resolution' was adopted by sixteen votes, the whole number of votes authorized to be cast by said board. On that day the board adjourned to October 13, 1937, “ for the purpose of hearing taxpayers on the Budgets for the year 1938 and for the six months of 1939, as tentatively prepared.”

On October thirteenth, the first item on the calendar was the taxpayers’ hearings on the tentative budget. The journal of proceedings refers to the hearings of October second, October sixth, and the resolutions adopted on such previous dates.

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Bluebook (online)
166 Misc. 889, 2 N.Y.S.2d 466, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dixon-v-laguardia-nysupct-1938.