Fox v. Board for Louisville & Jefferson County Children's Home

50 S.W.2d 67, 244 Ky. 1, 1932 Ky. LEXIS 390
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976)
DecidedMarch 8, 1932
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 50 S.W.2d 67 (Fox v. Board for Louisville & Jefferson County Children's Home) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976) primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fox v. Board for Louisville & Jefferson County Children's Home, 50 S.W.2d 67, 244 Ky. 1, 1932 Ky. LEXIS 390 (Ky. 1932).

Opinion

Opinion op the Court by

Judge Richardson—

Affirming.

Prior to 1912 two corporations were created by acts of the General Assembly of Kentucky, viz. the Louisville Industrial School of Reform, and the parental Home and School Commission of Jefferson county, located in the city of Louisville, Ky. These institutions were authorized to act independently of each other as corporate agents of the state, charged with powers to provide for the care, the maintenance, the training, and the education of certain classes of children residing in Jefferson county.

In 1920 the G-eneral Assembly repealed the original, amendatory, and supplementary acts creating and authorizing their operation. The same act authorized the organization of a corporation in the name of “the Board for Louisville and Jefferson County Children’s Home” for the purpose of taking over the property and assuming the authority, duties, and powers of both of the old institutions. Ky. Stats., secs. 938b-l to 938b-23, embrace the entire act. The Board for the Louisville & Jefferson County Children’s Home is a body politic, organized by virtue of these sections of the statutes, with power to acquire, either by lease, purchase, gift or condemnation, lands or other property necessary or suitable for establishing and maintaining a home for the general purpose of caring for the development, the training, and the education of dependent, neglected, delinquent and incorrigible children.

A provision of the act authorizes the officers of the institution to receive, discharge, or parole from the home *4 of the appellee children committed by any court or officer, or to keep, maintain, train, and educate them for such periods for which they may be respectively committed, during the time they are kept by the institution.

The appellee is empowered and directed by the act to provide and maintain and to cause to be provided and maintained, for the children received into its home, such schools and forms of instruction in branches of useful practical knowledge as necessary or proper for their education, and for the acquirement and practice by the children of useful labor or trades, suitable to their years and capacity. For that purpose it is made the duty of the officers of the institution to cause the employment and occupation of the children in its home and on its grounds and premises. It is clothed with power, within its discretion, to bind out any child as an apprentice to any person or persons, to learn proper trade and employment as in its judgment may be most conducive to the reformation or amendment or benefit or advantage of such child. The members of its board of directors are required to be selected and appointed by the mayor of the city of Louisville and by the judge or the county court of Jefferson county; each member to be a bona fide resident of the county or city, not less than 25 years of age; one-half the members to be of one political party, and the other of the other political party which at the last preceding general election in the county, respectively, cast the highest, and next highest, number of votes.

For the purpose of providing necessary funds for maintaining the institution, and carrying out the purpose of the act, the fiscal court of Jefferson county and the general council of the city of Louisville are each empowered and directed to levy and collect a tax of not less than 3% cents nor more than 5 cents on each $100 of the taxable property in the county and city, respectively, as determined by the last regular assessment of the county and city, respectively. All funds derived from such levy and collections are to be paid to, and expended by, the appellee for the purposes we have outlined. The amount the appellees may expend annually for the work of the institution is not to exceed the total sum derived through the levy and collection of the taxes for the year in which the levy is made and as supplemented by any funds donated or given for the same purpose. It is made the duty of the board of directors during the month of De *5 cember of each year to prepare and certify to both the fiscal court and the general council a financial statement setting forth the total fund which in its judgment will be needed for the ensuing fiscal year for the maintenance of the home, and carrying out the purpose of the act, showing’ the estimated balance, the funds, estimates and expenditures for that purpose, and any other detailed information within the power of the board to furnish and as requested by the fiscal court and general council. In making the budget, the board of directors is required to divide and allot the revenues, funds, and assets estimated to be necessary and to become available for each fiscal year to the various branches or departments of expenditures to be made for the maintenance of the institution and carrying out the provisions of the act in this respect. Other duties are imposed by the act upon the board of directors and the officials of the institution, and other powers are conferred upon them not necessary to be considered in a disposition of this case.

Sections 938b-l to 938b-23 inclusive, were, for a number of years, complied with by the city and the county. The necessary levies of the taxes were respectively made, by the general council of the city and the fiscal court up to 1931. The council for 1931 made a levy according to the board’s budget, as authorized by the act, of 3% cents on each $100 of taxable property within its corporate limits. The fiscal court levied in 1931 only 1 cent on each $100 taxable property of the county, but refused to recognize the budget certified to it by the board, and to make any other or further levy foj the maintenance of the institution for the year 1931. The statement, or budget required, was filed by the board of directors with the fiscal court of the county, showing the necessity of the levy by the fiscal court of the 3% cents on each $100 of the taxable property in the county, for the maintenance of the institution in accordance to the provisions of the act. The appellee endeavored to induce and to persuade the fiscal court to levy a minimum rate of at least 3% cents authorized to be made by the provisions of the act. At that time there was under the jurisdiction and control of the appellee 1,680 children; of these 650 were inmates of the home, and were being clothed, fed, schooled, and taken care of by it; 680 were outside of the home, for some of whom the appellee was obliged to pay for their necessities, including board, and yet others of them were partly supported by it.

*6 This action was instituted to require the fiscal court to discharge its mandatory duty by making at least the minimum levy in conformity with the statement or budget of the appellee’s board of directors and in accordance to which the city of Louisville had previously made its levy as required by the act. The trial court decreed an additional levy be made by the fiscal court of 2% cents on each $100 of the property subject to taxation for county purposes. The fiscal court appeals.

The appellant vigorously argues that the act imposes a mandatory duty on the fiscal court to make the levy sought in the budget of the board of directors, and that it is a violation of sections 181 and 181a of the Constitution of Kentucky.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
50 S.W.2d 67, 244 Ky. 1, 1932 Ky. LEXIS 390, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fox-v-board-for-louisville-jefferson-county-childrens-home-kyctapphigh-1932.