Foothill Junior College District v. Board of Supervisors

371 P.2d 977, 57 Cal. 2d 771, 22 Cal. Rptr. 201, 1962 Cal. LEXIS 226

• Court: California Supreme Court
• Decided: June 4, 1962
• Docket: S. F. 20649
• Status: Published

Opinions

DOOLING, J.

This appeal presents the question of the rights of the parties with respect to surplus tax funds collected in plaintiff district by defendants to pay tuition to certain other junior college districts.

There is no dispute as to the facts. Pursuant to an election, plaintiff district was established on July 1, 1957. During the school year July 1, 1956, to June 30, 1957, residents in plaintiff district sent their children to junior colleges outside of the district area. Under the then law, the county in which the nonjunior college district area was situated was required to impose a special tax on the residents of that area to establish a junior college tuition fund. (Ed. Code, §§ 7231, 7232 ; now §§ 20201, 20202.) This fund was then used to reimburse the junior college districts for the full tuition costs of the children in attendance from the nonjunior college district areas. The tax for the fund was imposed to pay for attendance during the preceding year rather than for the current year, and in theory it should yield the amount necessary to defray the junior college tuition obligations without producing a surplus.

Plaintiff district represented approximately 44 per cent of the nonjunior college district area in Santa Clara County. For the school year July 1, 1957, to June 30, 1958, residents of plaintiff district paid two sets of taxes: one was to support plaintiff, a new junior college district, during the first year of its operation; the other was its share as formerly a part of a nonjunior college district for tuition costs owing to junior college districts for the preceding year. After such reimbursement was made for those districts, it was found that there was a surplus of $35,793.23. According to past years’ practice, such surplus would be applied to the next year’s tuition costs so as to lower the tax rate for the entire nonjunior college district area. Of the above-stated surplus 44.43 per cent or $15,902.93 was attributable to the area of plaintiff district. Plaintiff now as a legal entity seeks a declaration of its right to this sum.¹ The trial court ordered a denial of plaintiff's motion for a judgment on the pleadings and granted a summary judgment to defendants.

The question arises in this way. The governing statute by its express terms required the levy of a tax “upon all taxable property in the county not situated in any junior college district” (Ed. Code, § 7232; Stats. 1955, p. 3369; emphasis added) to reimburse other junior college districts for the children in attendance in such districts from the nonjunior college areas of the county during the preceding year. This statute, and its predecessor statute considered in Pasadena Junior College Dist. v. Board of Supervisors, 216 Cal. 61 [13 P.2d 678], only made provision for the levy of such tax on property “not situated in any junior college district” and thus by its terms would exclude a tax on property in a newly formed junior college district even though during the preceding year such property was not in any junior college district, and but for its incorporation into the newly formed district would be liable for its proportion of such tax. In view of the obvious unfairness of this result, we held in the Pasadena case that in conformity with the “spirit of our laws, which seek to impose upon all property in the state its just proportion of taxation,” it would be inequitable for the area “embraced within the newly organized” district not to pay the obligations incurred during the preceding year for the education of its junior college students in other districts (216 Cal., p. 72), and accordingly issued our writ of mandate in that case to compel the levy of such tax on the property within the newly formed district.

Theoretically such tax should only be sufficient to raise the exact amount needed to meet the specific obligation. Practically, of course, no such perfection can be expected of any human operation subject to the uncertainties inherent in the taxing process. The result has been a surplus in the tax funds actually collected, which normally is carried forward to reduce the amount needed to be raised for the same purpose in the succeeding year. However, plaintiff district has no such obligation for the succeeding year and if the excess of $15,902.93 is used for that purpose, plaintiff’s taxpayers will to that extent be contributing to the payment of an obligation to which they have no legal obligation to contribute. Since, as we held in Pasadena, equity required its taxpayers to contribute to the satisfaction of a particular obligation and that obligation has now been fully satisfied, plaintiff argues that equity equally demands that the excess of its taxpayers’ contribution to the fund for that purpose should now be used for the benefit of the school district in which it was raised, and not for the benefit of the taxpayers of the still nonjunior college areas of the county for which plaintiff’s taxpayers no longer have any legal responsibility.

We are persuaded that under the peculiar facts of this case this argument is sound. The particular tax in question is not a general ad valorem tax imposed to meet the general obligations of local government, where presumably the community as a whole benefits from the governmental services supported by the tax collected. (People v. City of Palm Springs, 51 Cal.2d 38, 47-48 [331 P.2d 4].) Rather it is a specific tax levied for a single purpose and that single purpose having been fully satisfied, the taxpayers in plaintiff district will clearly receive no benefit from the surplus contributed by them unless that surplus is returned to plaintiff district. Application of the surplus to the benefit of the areas in the county still not within a junior college district will result in plaintiff’s taxpayers paying an obligation for which they have no legal liability and for which they can receive no possible governmental service in return.

Defendants argue that the Legislature has provided specifically for the distribution of surplus school funds in other situations but has made no provision in the case of any surplus in the junior college tuition fund, which would indicate that no such transfer as plaintiff seeks was intended. Thus, when a lapsed elementary school district is merged into another district, its funds are transferred. (Ed. Code, § 1880.) Where there is a school district fund surplus, 80 per cent of it may be transferred to the county school service fund. (Ed. Code, §20104.) Any “unnecessary surplus” in the county school tuition fund may be transferred to the county school service fund. (Ed. Code, § 20162.) There may be a transfer of funds of a school district library to the county library if the former becomes a branch. (Ed. Code, § 7202.)

But the special tax here rests on a different premise entirely. The county superintendent of schools computes the total cost of education from the preceding year for junior college students living in non junior college areas. (Ed. Code, §7231; now §20201.) That is a fixed and certain amount already established, and not, as in most estimates for tax purposes, an approximation of future expenditures. From this amount the county controller deducts the surplus that is currently in the fund, and the remainder is the sum which must be raised in the tax levy. He then determines the total assessed value of all taxable property on the secured roll and reduces this figure by 2 per cent as a delinquency factor. The result of this computation is divided into the amount that must be raised, and the quotient is the rate of tax to be levied. Under this method the 2 per cent delinquency factor is doubtless a reasonable estimate based upon experience, but as a matter of fact the amount raised is never precisely the amount needed and a residual will usually result. (Otis v. Los Angeles County, 9 Cal.2d 366, 373 [70 P.2d 633] ; American Securities Co. v. Forward, 220 Cal. 566, 576-577 [32 P.2d 343, 96 A.L.R. 1268].) Yet the statute provides that the special tax is only to be “sufficient in amount to defray” the specified junior college tuition costs (Ed. Code, § 7232 ; now § 20202) and in the absence of any express method for its calculation, there is nothing to indicate that the Legislature even contemplated that there would be a surplus so as to be assigned any intent as to its disposition. Normally, the surplus from one year would be deducted from the next year’s tax, and the taxpayers in the entire area as continuing residents of a non junior college district would receive the progressive benefits from year to year. But this now is not the ease here since the taxpayers of plaintiff district no longer qualify for surplus moneys retained for the education of junior college students in areas not within a junior college district, and any “temporary inequalities arising from cumulative” levies would never “be ironed out and equalized.” (American Securities Co. v. Forward, supra, 220 Cal., p. 577.)

The question involved in this litigation is one which will not recur. In 1959 section 20211 of the Education Code was adopted. (Stats. 1959, p. 4761.) This section provides, in effect, that the state shall bear a new junior college district’s obligation to other districts for the cost of educating its junior college students in the preceding year instead of having, as theretofore, the levy of such tuition tax as here was done. By such enactment the Legislature has enunciated a policy against the double taxation feature previously prevailing in the first year of a newly formed junior college district’s existence. While the statute applies prospectively, there appears to be no reason why its policy should not, as far as possible, have some retrospective force.

Since plaintiff is only asking for a declaratory judgment, we are not here concerned with any question of its possible remedies to recover the sum involved in view of defendants’ assertion that the “fund” resulting from the surplus of $15,902.93 here in issue has now been expended. Nor are we concerned with hypothetical cases involving the annexation of a portion of one school district to another and other such situations suggested by defendants. We limit our decision to the peculiar facts of this case and hold simply that this $15,902.93 which was raised by taxation for one specific purpose from the taxpayers of plaintiff district and proved not to be needed for that specific purpose, in equity and good conscience became the property of the junior college district whose specific obligation it was raised to meet.

In view of this conclusion plaintiff district is a proper party plaintiff to assert this right as trustee of the school district funds. (Butler v. Compton Junior College Dist., 77 Cal.App.2d 719, 729 [176 P.2d 417] ; Pomona City School Dist. v. Payne, 9 Cal.App.2d 510, 516 [50 P.2d 822] ; see also Hall v. City of Taft, 47 Cal.2d 177, 181-182 [302 P.2d 574].)

The judgment is reversed with directions to enter judgment on the pleadings declaring plaintiff’s rights in accordance with this opinion.

Schauer, J., McComb, J., Peters, J., and White, J., concurred.

1 While in its complaint plaintiff asked for affirmative relief in addition to a declaration of its rights, on this appeal plaintiff has abandoned its claim, for other affirmative relief and asks only for a declaratory judgment. (Appellant’s Reply Brief, p. 4.)