42 P. 221 | Or. | 1895
Opinion by
It is contended by the defendant that, the boundaries of the City of Portland having been changed and a portion of the territory cut off, the school district boundaries which were identical with those of the city were changed to the same extent by operation of law; that when a public corporation is divided by a legislative act, which makes no provision for the distribution of the assets and liabilities between the sections of the territory thus separated, courts are powerless to adjust the equities or to award such distribution; and that, conceding school district number one was divided for “school purposes,” within the meaning of the statute, the school superintendent has no authority to divide the school fund between the respective districts until their school boards have made an equitable division of the assets and liabilities, or a board of arbitration, in case of disagreement, has adjusted the matter; while the plaintiff insists that under the general provisions of the statute the county superintendent has such authority, and that it is made his duty to divide the school fund between the districts created out of the original territory.
This amendment having been made after the passage of section 2626, the question is suggested whether the latter section is wholly superseded thereby. The
The latter clause of subdivision 4 of section 2590 provides that the five-mill county school tax and the irreducible state school fund shall be divided in proportion to the number of persons between the ages of four and twenty years who are actual residents of the district at the time of the division of such funds. That subdivision also prescribes the mode which is to be pursued by the boards of directors in the division of the assets and liabilities of the divided school district, and, upon their failure to agree upon an equitable division thereof, it further provides for the appointment of a board of arbitrators, of which the county superintendent, by right of his office, is constituted a member, and the chairman thereof. The statute, having .prescribed the persons who should make this equitable division, impliedly excludes all others from taking any part therein, and this being so, by what legal right can the county superintendent make the division except as a member of the board of arbitrators? But, assuming that this fund is no part of the assets of a district until it has been apportioned to and received by it, and that the latter clause of subdivision 4 sanctions an apportionment of the particular fund by that officer, it will be observed that such subdivision also provides that the division shall be made in proportion to the number of persons between the ages of four and twenty years who are actual residents of the district at the time it is made. This provision, fairly interpreted, evidently means that the fund to be divided must bear the same proportion to the amount awarded to the new district that the whole number of persons of school age in the original district bears to the number of such persons in the
It may be conceded that a school district has no