delivered the opinion of the court:
In the public interest and because of the urgency of the cause, we have granted leave to the People, acting on the relation of Community High School District No. 231 of Cook County, (hereafter referred to as petitioner,) to file an original petition for writ of mandamus directing the respondent, Lawrence L. Hupe, treasurer for said district, to register, number and countersign bonds totalling $1,100,000, which relator has been lawfully authorized to issue, as he is required to do by section 19-7 of the School Code. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1953, chap. 122, par. 19-7.) Respondent has refused to execute bonds in excess of $516,000 on the ground that such figure is the limit of relator’s debt-incurring power.
Respondent’s refusal is predicated on section 12 of article IX of the Illinois constitution as it is implemented by section 19-33 °f the School Code. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1953, chap. 122, par. 19-33.) The mandate of the constitutional provision is, that “No county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall be allowed to become indebted in any manner or for any purpose, to an amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, * * *.” As regards schоol districts, section 19-33, as amended in 1953, (Laws of 1953, p. 1369,) ordains the following:
“§ 19-33. computing the debt incurring power of any school district where there has been included in any such school district only a part of any former school district which at the time of such inclusion has outstanding bonded indebtedness, a proportionate amount of such bonded indebtedness shall be chargeable to such school district based upon the ratio that the assessed valuation of taxable property as equalized and determined by the State Department of Revenue in that part of the territory of such former schоol district that has been included in any such schooldistrict bears to the total assessed valuation of the said former school district as equalized and determined by the State Department of Revenue for the year in which the change occurred, and said proportionate amount of such bonded indebtedness shall be chargeable against such school district in determining its debt incurring power.”
The facts which draw the foregoing provisions into the cause disclose that the petitioner was organized as the result of an election called by the" county superintendent of schools on April 19, 1952, under the provisions of sections 10-9 and 10-10 of the School Code, (111. Rev. Stat. 1951, chap. 122, pars. 10-9 and 10-10,) and that it was formed entirely out of territory comprising a part of Non-High School District No. 216 of Cook County. Since its organization, the petitioner, having no school buildings, has incurred a debt of $'200,000 for tuition; however, by elections held April 11 and October 10, 1953, and by proper board action in January, 1954, petitioner has been authorized to issue bonds totalling $1,100,000 for the purpose of purchasing a site and erecting a school building. The 1952 equalized assessed valuation of the taxable property in the territory which forms petitioner’s district was $26,957,960; thus if the constitutional provision alone is controlling, petitioner has a debt-incurring power of $1,347,898 less the $200,000 indebtedness for tuition, or $1,147,898, and the issuance of $1,100,000 of bonds would not violate the constitution.
At the time petitioner was organized, however, Non-High School District 216, of whose territory only a part was taken to create the petitioner, had a bonded indebtedness of $2,808,000 (since reduced to $2,518,000,) and the paramount question here is whether section 19-33 operates to make a portion of such indebtedness chargeable to petitioner’s debt-incurring power. The 1952 equalized assessed valuation of the taxable property in District 216 was $107,424,990 while, as previously stated, that of petitioner
It is common knowlеdge that since 1945, Illinois has been engaged in a comprehensive reorganization of its school system to the end that a more efficient system of schools be provided. One of the important features of the program, as reflected by the reports of the School Problems Commission and by subsequent legislation, has been a studied attempt to eliminate non-high school districts wherever and whenever possible, (See: Ill. Rev. Stat. 1951 and 1953, chap. 122, article 11,) a non-high school district consisting of territory which is no.t in a high-school district or a district maintaining a recognized four-year school. It maintains no educational facilities of its own and its only function is to provide funds to pay the high-school tuition of its eighth grade graduates. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1953, chap. 122, par. 11-1.) Inasmuch as petitioner was formed out of non-high school territory, thus having the effect of partially eliminating a non-high school district, this expressed purpose of the school administrators and legislators is relied upon heavily by petitioner as a basis for its contention that section 19-33 does not apply to school districts which include a part of a non-high school district.
One of the problems which has beset the reorganization of the school system has been that of fixing liability for existing indebtedness where two districts are consolidated or where a part only of one district is annexed to another. While there appears to be no question that petitioner did not, in this case, become liable for any of the bonded indebtedness
In the absence of statutory provisions the established rules are, first, if two or more municipal corporations are consolidated or the entire territory of one municipal corporation is annexed to another, the indebtedness of both becomes the indebtedness of the consolidating or annexing corporation (Kocsis v. Chicago Park District,
The only provisions in the School Code prior to 1949 which modified the general rules were sections 19-9, 19-30, and 19-31. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1947, chap. 122, pars. 19-9, 19-30, and 19-31.) Section 19-9 provided that the county clerk should extend taxes against all tаxable property in any school district, with a population of less than 500,000, as of the date of the registration of the bonds, in amounts sufficient to pay the principal and interest thereon. Sections 19-30 and 19-31 implemented section 19-9. The effect of the three sections was to confirm the general rule as to detachments of parts of school districts but to change the rule when an entire district was taken into or consolidated with another. This court so construed section 19-9 in
In 1951, the legislature further treated upon the matter of the assumption of bonded indebtedness when it added section 4B-12 to the Schoоl Code. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1951, chap. 122, par. 4B-12.) This section, which expressly applied only to boundary changes accomplished by the action of the newly created county boards of school trustees in the manner required by article 4B of the School Code, provided as follows:
“§ 4B-12. Unless otherwise provided in this Article whenever the boundaries of any school district, other than a non-high school district, are changed by the detachment of territory from one district and the annexation thereof to another school district or the dissolution of a districtand its annexation to another district under any оf the provisions of this Article the district as it exists on and after the change of boundaries shall assume the bonded indebtedness of the original annexing district and the liability for the bonded indebtedness of any territory so annexed. The tax rate for such indebtedness shall be determined in the manner provided in Section 19-9 of this Act.”
While this section did not, by its terms, apply to districts newly created in the manner provided for in sections 10-9 and 10-10, as was the petitioner, it becomes important because it is the exclusionary language relating to non-high school districts and a later amendment to the section, upon which pеtitioner predicates its claim that section 19-33 has no application when the boundary changes which occur affect non-high school territory. Applying the contention to the facts of his case, petitioner insists that because its territory was taken from a non-high school district (District 216), it is not chargeable, under section 19-33, with a proportionate share of the non-high school district’s bonded indebtedness in computing its debt-incurring power.
The amendments to the School Code which give rise to petitioner’s contention were contained in House Bill No. 76, as passed in 1953 by the sixty-eighth General Assembly, (Laws of 1953, pp. 1368-1369,) wherein sections 19-30, 19-31 and 19-32 were repealed and sections 4B-12, 19-9 and 19-33 were amended. As amended, section 4B-12 now provides as follows:
“§ 4B-12. Whenever a new district is created or the boundaries of any school district, other than a non-high school district, are changed by the annexation or detachment of territory or by the dissolution of a district and its annexation to another district under any of the provisions of this Act each such district as it exists on and after such action shall assume the bonded indebtedness of all the territory included therein after such change. The tax ratefor such indebteness shall be determined in the manner provided in Section ig-g of this Act, except the County Clerk shall anually extend taxes against all the taxable property situated in the county and contained in each such district as it exists after the action. When the territory of any non-high school district shall be annexed in the manner provided by any of the provisions of the School Code to any district having a bonded indebtedness, such non-high school territory shall remain liable for its bonded indebtedness and become liable for its proportionate part of the, bonded indebtedness of such annexing district.” Ill. Rev. Stat. ig53, chap. 122, par. 4B-12.
Thus it may be seen that instead of being applicable only to boundary changes occurring under the provisions of article 4B, section 4B-12 was amended to apply whenever a new school district is created or the boundaries of any school district changed under any of the provisions of the School Code. This enlargement of the scope of section 4B-12 beyond the provisions of article 4B eliminated what would have become duplicating provisions in section ig-32, which was repealed.
In like manner section ig-33, as previously quoted at the beginning of this oрinion, was amended to make it applicable to the computation of the debt-incurring power of “any school district” in which there is included only a part of any former school district which, at the time of such inclusion, had an outstanding bonded indebtedness. Unlike section 4B-12, as amended, this section contains no exclusionary language relative to territory of non-high school districts.
Section ig-g, the third section of the School Code to be affected by House Bill No. 76, was amended to remove the restrictive language which produced the result in Spence v. Selcke,
Petitioner construes section 4B-12, as amended, as excluding from its purview all boundary changes involving non-high school territory. Although we think the section inart fully drawn, we agree that this conclusion must be reached. When section 4B-12 was originally enacted in 1951 it provided as follows: “* * * whenever the boundaries of any school district, other than a non-high school district, arе changed by the detachment of territory from one district and the annexation thereof to another school district * * * the district as it exists on and after the change of boundaries shall assume the bonded indebtedness
The concluding sentence of the 1953 amendment to section 4B-12 also serves greatly to remove any doubt as to the legislative intent for it provides that “When the territory of, any non-high school district shall be annexed in the manner provided by any of the provisions of the
Aside from the language employed in the section, we believe that there are practical reasons, undoubtedly contemplated by the legislature, which would tend to bring about a legislative policy to relieve other districts from liability on non-high school district bonds. It is to be seen from article 11 of the Code that the only purpose for which non-high school districts may issue bonds is to pay tuition debts. By issuing such bonds instеad of paying the cost of tuition from current tax collections, the taxpayers of the district simply defer the payment of its current educational costs to other years. Bonds of an ordinary school district, on the other hand, are usually issued for the purpose of purchasing a school site and erecting school buildings and thus provide physical assets of a corresponding value which will inure to the benefit of the district for many years to come. To create a mutual exchange of bonded debt liability between a district and a part of a district, both of which have incurred their indеbtedness to establish permanent educational facilities in their respective districts, is logical and understandable and would, no doubt, be acceptable to the taxpayers involved. It is another matter, however, to ask a district that has, or is to become, indebted for a school site and buildings, to further shoulder a share of the bonded indebtedness of annexed non-high school territory which was incurred for current operating expense rather than permanent benefit to the school system.
Petitioner urges that the same reasons which led the legislature to exclude situations invоlving non-high school districts from the purview of section 4B-12 should operate to exclude them from the provisions relating to the computation of debt-incurring power in section 19-33. Because of this, and because the two sections were amended by the same bill, the petitioner contends that when the sections are construed in pari materia, they manifest a legislative intent to carry the exclusionary provision of section 4B-12 into section 19-33. It is argued that if section 19-33 is to be construed as charging operating districts with the bonded indebtedness of non-high school districts, it will be impossible to carry out the program for the elimination of non-high school districts, a result so inconsistent with the legislature’s positive program that it could not have been intended. Respondent, while admitting section 4B-12 is to be construed as showing a legislative intent to exclude cases involving non-high school districts from its scope, asserts that if the legislature had likewise intended to exclude situations of the same nature from the application of section 19-33, it would have expressly done so as it did in section 4B-12. In the absence of such express language, it is the respondent’s position that section 19-33 must be literally enforced.
It is a canon of statutory construction that where the passage of a series of legislative acts results in confusion and consequences which the legislature may not have contemplаted, courts must construe the acts in such a way as to reflect the obvious intent of the legislature and to permit practical application of the statutes. (Scofield v. Board of Education,
Sections 19-33 and 4B-12 both deal with the subject of bonded indebtedness of school districts and, inasmuch as it appears that the over-all purpose for the enactment of House Bill No. 76 was to facilitate and further the program for reorganizing our schools into an efficient, uniform, and fair system, it is apparent that both were intended to be harmonious and consistent with the entire plan for reorganization reflected by the School Code. One part of that plan, as shown by changes incorporated into article 11 of the School Code by the two most recent sessions of the General Assembly (1951 and 1953) is the elimination of non-high school districts. As stated previously, it is not the elimination of such districts which is paramount in such legislation but, rather, that the territory included in such districts becomes a part of a district having, or which will furnish, school facilities. If section 19-33 is t° be literally construed to the extent that new districts created out of non-high school territory are prevented
The consequences discussed were expressly avoided by the legislature in section 4B-12 and it is to be presumed that it was not intended section 19-33, which was enacted in the same bill with the same spirit and policies in view, should operate to restrict or prevent the creation of new districts out of non-high school territory. We hold, therefore, that to give consistency and harmony to the end that the school reorganization program may continue rapidly and successfully, there must be read into section 19-33 the same intention to exclude situations involving the creation of new districts out of non-high school territory that was manifested in section 4B-12.
Such a construction creates the probability that the territory taken to form the petitioner will be subject to the bonded indebtedness of both the old and the new districts, the total of which will likely exceed 5 per cent of the valuation of the taxable property in such territory. However, as fully explained in McLain v. Phelps,
In view of the result we have reached, discussion of further attacks made by petitioner on section 19-33 becomes unnecessary. Therefore, the writ of mandamus is awarded as prayed for, commanding the respondent forthwith to register, number and countersign the bonds authorized by the Board of Education of Community High School District Number 231, Cook County, Illinois, in the manner previously described, when such bonds have been issued and signed by the president, secretary, and two members of the said board of education.
Writ awarded.