Judges: JAN ERIC CARTWRIGHT, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF OKLAHOMA
Filed Date: 5/7/1979
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/6/2016
Dear Director Hill,
The Attorney General is in receipt of your request for an opinion wherein you ask, in effect, the following question.
May the Oklahoma State Department of Energy expend federal fundsreceived under a grant authorized by the National Energy ConservationPolicy Act of 1978 on parochial schools?
The National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1978, P.L.
"Procedures to ensure that funds will be allocated among eligible applicants for energy conservation projects within such state, including procedures
(B) to ensure that equitable consideration is given to all eligible public or non-profit institutions regardless of size and type of ownership, . . ."
Of course, private parochial schools are non-profit entities as defined by the above quoted provision. Your question asks essentially whether the State of Oklahoma, through the Department of Energy, may make grants of federal funds directly to parochial schools for the purposes of implementing the federal legislation. Article
"No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated or used, directly or indirectly for the use, benefit or support of any sect, church, denomination or system of religion, or for the use, benefit or support of any priest, preacher, minister or other religious teacher or dignitary or sectarian institution as such."
It is difficult to imagine how the framers of our constitution could more completely and expressly state that public money shall not be directly or indirectly used for any sectarian purpose. The provision of the Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma on numerous occasions and in every instance given a strict interpretation so as to preclude the use of public funds for sectarian purposes in any manner. See Gurney v. Ferguson,
The decisions leave little doubt that public funds may not be expended to assist sectarian institutions in the implementation of these energy conservation programs.
Nor do we think that the segregation of federal funds in separate accounts and the expenditure of only federal funds from those accounts in the State Treasury is a means by which the State can provide assistance to private sectarian schools. The federal program enacted in P.L.
It is, therefore, the opinion of the Attorney General that the StateDepartment of Energy may not expend funds from federal grants receivedunder P.L.
JAN ERIC CARTWRIGHT, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF OKLAHOMA
JOHN F. PERCIVAL, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL