54 S.E.2d 825 | W. Va. | 1949
On August 9, 1948, Edward F. Baxa, Dr. O. O. Bennett, H. B. Adams and Edward C. Young, residents and taxpayers of the City of Buckhannon, filed their petition in this Court under Code,
On April 1, 1948, the Common Council of the City of Buckhannon, at a regular meeting, adopted an ordinance submitting to a vote of the people of that city on June 1, 1948, the question of approving or disapproving a proposed bond issue for $75,000.00 for the purpose of constructing a fire department building and acquiring real property for that purpose. The record submitted to the Attorney General under the applicable statute shows that this order of the City Council was passed and the election properly held on June 1, 1948, with the result that the issuance of bonds was approved by a vote of 1050 to 441. The record shows also that following the election and on June 7, 1948, the City Council passed another order containing the statement that after providing the revenue necessary for the payment of both principal and interest requirements on the bonds, there will be out of the levies authorized by law sufficient funds to carry on the requisite functions of the City of Buckhannon. This order provided further that the rate of levy adopted in the order passed April 1 wherever necessary may be exceeded in making the annual levy to meet the required payment of interest and principal coming due under the proposed bond issue.
The contention of the petitioners is that in approving the bond issue under the record submitted to him by the City of Buckhannon the Attorney General necessarily approved the order of June 7, 1948, since it is a part of the record submitted to him by the City of Buckhannon. They say that in providing the manner in which governmental units may become indebted Section 8 of Article X of our Constitution requires that "all questions connected with the same shall have been first submitted to a vote of the people"; that providing the necessary running expenses for the City of Buckhannon is a question necessarily connected *862 with the issuance of its bonds and that the general statement that that will be provided should have been included in the order of April 1, 1948, so informing the people to whom the matter was submitted.
They say further that since Code,
Discussing the question concerning the governing body of the City of Buckhannon finding and stating in the order published under the provisions of Code,
The contention is advanced that since the estimate for the fiscal year 1948-49 includes in the general fund approximately $4,500.00 representing money received from the sale of real estate and by a donation from the volunteer fire department, this sum should be eliminated from the estimated current revenue of the City of Buckhannon and that, if this is done, the current revenue for that year is insufficient to meet the city's debt charges and provide for its operating expense. That may be true but if so it still lies within the power of the city's governing body to reduce its operating expense so as to bring it within the lawful revenue after providing for legitimate debt charges. As to expending the corpus of capital assets in the payment of operating expense by placing their sale price in the general fund, we cannot say that this is beyond the power of its governing body. That body has well nigh complete control of the city's fiscal affairs and if it sees fit to dispose of what may be termed capital assets, such as real property, as an incident in acquiring a different capital asset, in this instance a fire station, we are of the opinion that it would be highly technical for this Court to say that instead of going into the general fund, the purchase price received from the sale of real estate owned by it should have been placed by the body in charge of its fiscal affairs in the fund set aside for the purpose of meeting its bonded indebtedness, in part created for the purpose of acquiring other real property. We therefore believe that it was unnecessary for the order of April 1, 1948, to expressly state that the lawful revenue of the City of Buckhannon for the fiscal year 1948-49, after excluding the named items, would be sufficient to include its necessary operating expense and to provide for its bonded indebtedness.
As to the second question, Code,
The petition attacks the bond issue and the Attorney General's approval thereof by alleging that the governing body of the City of Buckhannon intends to construct a building the purpose of which will include uses in addition to those submitted to a vote of the people and approved by them. As to this, the notice of submission reads as follows:
"It is necessary in the public interest that improvements be made in the said City for which bonds are proposed to be issued as follows: The erection and construction or assist in the erection and construction of a City fire station building *865 to be used for the purpose of housing and protecting the fire fighting equipment of the City of Buckhannon and afford the said City adequate fire protection at an estimated cost including architect's fee of approximately $68,000.00."
This proceeding is for the purpose of considering the Attorney General's approval of the bond issue in question: not to supervise the expenditure of funds procured as a result of that bond issue. There is nothing in the file transmitted to this Court that includes or could include occurrences subsequent to the Attorney General's approval. Questions that have to do with the use of the money raised by the sale of the approved bonds can not be reached. To consider them now would be premature.
For the foregoing reasons the approval of the Attorney General of the bond issue in question is affirmed.
Affirmed.