80 N.Y.2d 988 | NY | 1992
OPINION OF THE COURT
Memorandum.
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs.
In 1981, the Legislature enacted the "special traffic options program for driving while intoxicated” (STOP-DWI) whereby a participating county could receive fines and forfeitures collected by courts within that county for alcohol-related driving offenses (L 1981, ohs 910, 913; reenacted L 1988, ch 47; see, Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1197). The funds were to be used for law enforcement and education purposes in accordance with plans submitted to and approved by the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, who had a continuing duty to monitor each county’s program.
In an effort to defray the Commissioner’s costs of administering the STOP-DWI program, the Legislature provided in
Supreme Court assumed, without deciding, that plaintiffs had standing to challenge the budget provision (151 Misc 2d 552, 554), and the Appellate Division expressly held that the county plaintiffs had standing (173 AD2d 37, 40), applying a standard that court had previously enunciated (see, Matter of City of New York v Lawton, 128 AD2d 202, 206; Purcell v Regan, 126 AD2d 849, 850, Iv denied 69 NY2d 613). According to the Appellate Division, a county has standing to challenge allegedly invalid legislation when it has a proprietary claim of entitlement to a specific fund, and asserts that the legislation has impaired its entitlement to that fund (173 AD2d, at 40). We have not previously endorsed that concept of standing, nor —as the parties have framed the issue — is it necessary for us to consider the validity of that concept today.
The thrust of defendants’ standing argument on this appeal is that the counties lack standing because they cannot establish the requisite proprietary interest. According to defendants, the revenues are State, not county, funds. On the facts before us, defendants’ standing argument must be rejected. The STOP-DWI legislation having been neither amended nor repealed, the participating counties have a proprietary claim to the fines and forfeitures at issue, thus establishing standing, under the Appellate Division’s standard, to challenge the constitutionality of the Legislature’s assignment of administrative duties to the Comptroller.
Turning to the merits, the counties concede that the Legislature, which has ultimate authority over the disposition of fines collected in this State, may reduce or even eliminate their share of the revenues. However, what is challenged here as unconstitutional is the methodology by which the Legisla
Acting Chief Judge Simons and Judges Kaye, Titone, Hancock, Jr., Bellacosa and Smith concur.
Order affirmed, with costs, in a memorandum.
Thus it is unnecessary for us to consider whether the Rensselaer County STOP-DWI Coordinator and the STOP-DWI Coordinators’ Association independently have standing.