Maddox v. City of Fort Smith

56 S.W.3d 375, 346 Ark. 209, 2001 Ark. LEXIS 539
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedOctober 11, 2001
Docket01-117
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 56 S.W.3d 375 (Maddox v. City of Fort Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Maddox v. City of Fort Smith, 56 S.W.3d 375, 346 Ark. 209, 2001 Ark. LEXIS 539 (Ark. 2001).

Opinion

Annabelle Clinton Imber, Justice.

This is an illegal-exaction case brought pursuant to Article 16, §§ 11 and 13, of the Arkansas Constitution. The appellants, Bill Maddox, Bill Grace, Jerry Frisby, Melba Riggs, and Charles Beasley, on behalf of themselves and the citizens, residents, taxpayers, and utility ratepayers of the City of Fort Smith, appeal the summary-judgment order of the Sebastian County Chancery Court dismissing their illegal-exaction and unlawful-transfer claims against the appellee, the City of Fort Smith. The appellants claim that the City has been illegally spending its share of revenues collected under a countywide sales and use tax since 1999 when the City’s Board of Directors authorized the use of those tax revenues in a manner inconsistent with a resolution passed by the Board in 1994. Furthermore, the appellants allege that two transfers made from the City’s water and sewer operating fond to the City’s general fund and one transfer made from the City’s sanitation operating fund to the City’s general fund were unlawful.

We affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment as to the appellants’ first claim because the Board’s 1994 resolution does not bind the City in appropriating its share of the countywide sales and use tax revenues; rather, the City’s use of those tax revenues is governed by the Sebastian County ordinance that levied the sales and use tax for “general, municipal and county purposes.” With regard to the appellants’ second claim, we also affirm the trial court’s ruling that any challenge to the 1994 transfer of funds is barred by the statute of limitations. However, based upon the evidence submitted to the trial court, we conclude that genuine issues of material fact exist concerning whether the 1996 transfer of funds from the City’s water and sewer operating fund complied with the provisions of Ark. Code Ann. § 14-234-214(e) (Repl. 1998). Moreover, with respect to the legality of the 1996 transfer of funds from the sanitation operating fund to the City’s general fund, we cannot say that it is clear from the record or the law cited by the parties that the City is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s grant of summary judgment as to the appellants’ claims arising out of the 1996 transfers of funds and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.

I. Standard of Review

Summary judgment-should be granted only when it is clear that there is no issue of fact to be litigated, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rankin v. City of Fort Smith, 337 Ark. 599, 990 S.W.2d 535 (1999). Summary judgment is appropriate when the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, responses to requests for admission, and affidavits show that there is no genuine question of material fact to be litigated and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Loewer v. Cla-Cliff Nursing and Rehab. Ctr., 344 Ark. 258, 39 S.W.3d 771 (2001). The burden of proving that there is no genuine issue of material fact is upon the moving party. Id. On appellate review, we must determine if summary judgment was proper based on whether the evidence presented by the moving party left a material question of fact unanswered. Id. This court views the proof in a light most favorable to the party resisting the motion, resolving any doubts and inferences against the moving party, to determine whether the evidence presented left a material question of fact unanswered. Rankin v. City of Fort Smith, supra.

II. Illegal Exaction

On April 19, 1994, the Quorum Court of Sebastian County approved Ordinance No. 94-10, which called for a special election on the question of a levy of a one percent (1%) sales and use tax for Sebastian County and authorized collection of the tax should it be approved by the Sebastian County electorate. The ordinance, which was published in a local newspaper on April 23, 1994, stated that the tax proceeds would be used for “general, municipal and county purposes.” The ballot title itself did not reflect any particular purpose for the tax. On the same day that the Sebastian County Court approved Ordinance No. 94-10, the Board of Directors of the City of Fort Smith adopted Resolution R-67-94, endorsing the passage of the one percent sales and use tax and stating that “if the citizens approve the countywide sales tax . . ., the Board of Directors commit to earmark the following percentages of the City’s share of the countywide sales tax as follows. ...” The resolution contained a specific list, by percentage, of uses the Board committed to make of the tax revenues: 33% to fire and police services; 33% for waste-water improvements; 10% to subsidize the cost of a new landfill in the sanitation program; 6% to improve library programs; 4% for senior citizen and park programs; 3% for capital improvements in the downtown and riverfront areas; 3% to public transportation services; and 8% to replace revenues lost due to the repeal of the City’s privilege license requirements. The resolution also promised that, if the countywide sales tax was approved, the Board would extend the one-cent city street, bridge, and drainage sales tax for another ten years; repeal the City’s privilege license requirements and refund the 1994 privilege license fees; and forego a sanitation rate increase scheduled for July 1, 1994. The tax was approved by a majority of the county electorate on June 21, 1994.

From the day collection of the one-percent sales tax first began until December 7, 1999, the City expended its portion of the county sales tax revenues consistently with the commitments made in the 1994 resolution. On December 7, 1999, the Board passed Ordinance No. 76-99, approving the City’s year 2000 operating budget. In that budget, the City’s share of county sales tax revenues that had been allocated in previous years to the water and sewer operating fund and to the sanitation operating fund, in accordance with the 1994 resolution, were reallocated to other municipal uses. The budget indicated that rate charges for water, sewer, and solid waste services would provide the necessary funding for those operations in the future.

In their first point on appeal, the appellants argue that the City violated Article 16, § 11, of the Arkansas Constitution when it stopped honoring the spending commitments made by the Board in Resolution R-67-94. Specifically, they claim that the City was bound by the 1994 resolution in its use of the tax revenues and that when the voters of the City of Fort Smith voted in favor of the countywide sales and use tax, they were entitled to rely on the Board’s commitments in the 1994 resolution. The Arkansas Constitution, at Article 16, § 11, provides: “No tax shall be levied except in pursuance of law, and every law imposing a tax shall state distinctly the object of the same; and no moneys arising from a tax levied for one purpose shall be used for any other purpose.” The intent of this language is for the object of tax revenues to be stated so that the revenues cannot be shifted to a use other than that authorized. Oldner v. Villines, 328 Ark. 296, 943 S.W.2d 574 (1997). Thus, both the county ordinance and the city resolution at issue here must be construed in light of the language in this constitutional provision.

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Bluebook (online)
56 S.W.3d 375, 346 Ark. 209, 2001 Ark. LEXIS 539, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/maddox-v-city-of-fort-smith-ark-2001.