Harwell v. Sheffield

77 So. 2d 439
Supreme Court of Florida·Decided January 21, 1955·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinions

SEBRING, Justice.

The plaintiffs below, who are teachers in the public schools of Duval County, Florida, have appealed from a summary final decree purporting to declare their full rights to teachers’ salaries under Chapters 28115, F.S.A. § 282.01 and 28139, F.S.A. § 236.07(3), Laws of Florida 1953.

So far as material here, Chapter 28115, Laws of Florida 1953, known as the 1953 General Appropriations Act, provides in Item 16 thereof as follows:

“g. Minimum Foundation Program—
Public Schools:
1. Participation Under Current Law $55,600,000.00 $113,523,345.00
2. Provision for $350 Teacher pay raise (Payable at the rate of $350 per annum per instructional unit; Provided, however, that county teacher salary schedules shall provide at least a $350 annual increase from State funds over salary schedules for the previous year) . 8,300,000.00 16,957,150.00
* * * * * * * * *
The funds appropriated herein shall be expended in accordance with Chapter 236, Florida Statutes, as amended * *

[441]*441Chapter 28139, Laws of Florida 1953, the companion statute involved, is an act which amends subsection (3) of section 236.07, Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A., by increasing in the sum of $350 annually the several respective amounts set up therein which serve as a base for determining salaries of teachers, according to rank, under the Minimum Foundation Program.

In the complaint filed in the court below, the plaintiffs aver, in effect, that the School Board of Duval County has received and retained the full amount of state funds provided by paragraph “g” of Item 16 of the 1953 General Appropriations Act and that consequently the teachers of Duval County have a vested right, for the school term 1953-54, to receive the same salaries from combined state and county funds that they received under the salary schedules adopted by the Duval County School Board for the school term 1952-53, plus a raise of $350 from the state funds made available in paragraph “g,” Item 16; that the Board has refused to grant the raise to which the teachers are thus entitled but instead has taken county funds which should have been used to provide such salary increases and has diverted such funds to other school purposes.

In the answer filed to the complaint the Board admits, in effect, that it has received the state moneys provided by the 1953 General Appropriations Act, and has not increased the pay of teachers under the salary schedules adopted for the school term 1952-53, but avers that even though no salary increases have been granted all state funds received under the provisions of the appropriations act have been expended by the Board on teachers’ salaries and consequently there has been a complete compliance with the réquirements of the law. The Board also sets forth in its answer, in detail, the procedure followed by it in arriving at the budget for the expenditure of school funds from all sources, federal, state and county, for the year 1953-54, and alleges that the budget thus prepared was accepted and approved by the Duval County Budget Commission and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and, therefore, that the budget was binding on the teachers in the county school system.

After the answer was filed the cause came on for hearing on the motion of the plaintiffs for the entry of a summary final decree on the complaint and answer; the ground of the motion being that the answer was insufficient as a defense to the claim asserted by the plaintiffs. At the hearing, the trial court accepted the theory of the defense interposed by the Board in its answer, and ruled, in effect, among other things, that when the Board provided, in the 1953-54 budget approved by the County Budget Commission and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, that all state funds available under the Minimum Foundation Act, as amended by the 1953 General Appropriations Act, should be used for the payment of teachers’ salaries, the requirements of the proviso contained in sub-paragraph 2, paragraph “g,” Item 16 of the General Appropriations Act, had been met; even though no provision had been made in the 1953-54 budget for an increase in teachers’ salaries over those which had obtained under the salary schedule adopted for the previous year.

The basic question on the appeal is whether or not, on the pleadings and exhibits, the final summary decree in favor of the defendant is warranted.

As we understand the provisions of the Florida School Code, the Foundation Program Fund was created to give state aid and assistance to the respective counties in the operation of the public schools. It was established in recognition of the fact that public education is not alone the responsibility of the respective counties but that the state should share in the burden as well. It is composed of state moneys, and consequently the state may place any reasonable condition or limitation upon its availability that is not unlawful. Savage v. Board of Public Instruction, 101 Fla. 1362, 133 So. 341; State v. Board of Pub. Instr. for Dade County, 126 Fla. 142, 170 So. 602.

In the 1953 General Appropriations Act the legislature appropriated the sum of $113,523,345 for the biennium to assist the [442]*442counties in maintaining the minimum foundation program “Under Current Law.” It also appropriated an additional sum of $16,-957,150 for the period “for $350 Teacher pay raise * * * Payable at the rate of $350 per annum per instructional unit * * * ” on condition “that county teacher salary schedules shall provide at least a $350 annual increase from State funds over salary schedules for the previous year * * *. ” It required that the state moneys thus appropriated in aid of the county school programs should be “expended in accordance with Chapter 236, Florida Statutes, as amended * * and, in the amendment to Chapter 236, Florida Statutes, it provided, in its $350 increase of the several respective amounts theretofore included in Chapter 236 for apportionment purposes, “that nothing contained herein shall prevent each teacher employed in the public school system of the State of Florida from receiving the full amount of Three Hundred and Fifty ($350.00) Dollars yearly raise granted to said teachers in the 1953 State Appropriations Bill.” (Emphasis supplied.)

From all this we think it quite plain that as to the $16,957,150 item in the 1953 Appropriations Act, it was never the intention of the legislature that these state moneys were being made available by the state to the respective counties merely to supplant county funds that had theretofore been applied to the payment of teachers’ salaries; but, contrariwise, that the legislative intent, as to such funds, was that they were to become available to and expendable by the respective counties, proportionately, only in the event the counties were willing to maintain teacher salary schedules payable from county school funds other than the fund mentioned above at the same level as had been in force for the previous year, so as to effect, by means of the increased state appropriations, a $350 raise for

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Harwell v. Sheffield, 77 So. 2d 439 (Fla. 1955).

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