Kanawha Co. Public Library Bd. v. Board of Education of the County of Kanawha

Nos. 11-1224 and 11-1486 – Kanawha County Public Library Board, a public
corporation; West Virginia Board of Education, a public corporation; and Dr. Jorea
Marple, in her official capacity as Superintendent of Schools of the State of West Virginia
v. The Board of Education of the County of Kanawha
FILED
June 19, 2013
RORY L. PERRY II, CLERK
SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS
OF WEST VIRGINIA
Benjamin, Chief Justice, dissenting:
Because the majority opinion completely disregards a proper legislative
mandate, ignores the precedent of this Court, and has no basis in law or reason, I dissent.
In the case of County of Kanawha v. W. Va. Bd. of Educ., 219 W. Va. 801,
639 S.E.2d 893 (2006), this Court found that the then-applicable statutory provision
charging the Kanawha County Board of Education with distributing a part of the
proceeds of its annual regular levies to the support of the Kanawha County Public Library
violated constitutional equal protection principles. Specifically, this Court held:
W. Va. Code § 18-9A-12 (1993), to the extent that it
fails to provide that a county school board’s allocated state
aid share shall be adjusted to account for the fact that a
portion of the county school board’s local share is required by
law to be used to support a non-school purpose, violates equal
protection principles because it operates to treat county
school boards required by law to provide financial support to
non-school purposes less favorably than county school boards
with no such requirement.
Syl. pt. 6, id. This holding was based entirely on the finding that the public library did not
serve a school purpose. We made this quite clear in that case by stating:
When we apply the strict scrutiny test to the present
facts, we can find no compelling reason that justifies treating
those school boards differently that are charged by law with
1
applying a portion of their local share to support a non-school
purpose such as a public library. Clearly, the end result of
such unequal treatment is that county school boards charged
by law with diverting a portion of their local shares to support
non-school purposes have less funds from regular tax levies
to expend directly on public schools. Simply put, the more
than 2.2 million dollars directed each year to the support of
the library is money taken from the support of school children
in the classrooms of Kanawha County schools. This, in turn,
potentially impinges on a school board’s ability to provide a
thorough and efficient education to its students.
Id., 219 at 807-808, 639 S.E.2d at 899-900 (italics added) (footnote omitted). We stayed
the effect of our decision in County of Kanawha until the beginning of the next fiscal year
to give the Legislature an opportunity to take corrective action by amending the
applicable statutes.
The Legislature subsequently took the necessary corrective action by
amending the applicable statute to explicitly recognize that the public library serves a
legitimate school purpose. In W. Va. Code § 18-9A-11(f) (2008), the Legislature
provided:
To the extent that public schools recognize and choose to
avail the resources of public libraries toward developing
within their students such legally recognized elements of a
thorough and efficient education as literacy, interests in
literature, knowledge of government and the world around
them and preparation for advanced academic training, work
and citizenship, public libraries serve a legitimate school
purpose and may do so economically.
It is beyond dispute that the Kanawha County school board chooses to avail itself of the
resources of the public library in providing a thorough and efficient education to county
2
public school students. The public library’s bookmobile regularly visits schools
throughout the county so that students can check out library books.1 In addition, the
public library has placed branches in several public school buildings. For example, the
Riverside Public Library housed in Riverside High School is staffed by employees of the
Kanawha County Public Library and contains 41,000 items including 23 computers.2
Because the school board avails itself of the public library and its resources, the public
library serves a legitimate school purpose. Therefore, the school board’s funding of the
library from the school board’s budget does not infringe upon the state constitutional
right to a thorough and efficient public education. Instead, funding the public library
actually furthers the provision of a thorough and efficient education to the county’s
public school students.
Inexplicably, the majority opinion reaches the opposite conclusion by
finding that the school board’s support of the public library, which serves a school
purpose as explained above, improperly infringes upon the right of county students to a
thorough and efficient education. As a result of the holding of the majority opinion,
many valuable services offered by the public library now face an uncertain future. For
example, due to the loss of the school board’s funding for the 2013 and 2014 fiscal year,
1
In March of this year, 2,440 people checked out 3,937 materials from the bookmobile.
Shay Maunz, People love the bookmobile: The mobile library’s future is in question, but
for now, avid readers are covered,” Charleston Daily Mail, April 10, 2013 at 1C.
2
“Riverside: Not your average branch library,” @ The Library, a publication of the
Kanawha County Public Library System, Summer 2013 and www.kanawhalibrary.org.
3
the library was forced to cancel the 2013 West Virginia Book Festival. This means fewer
books in the hands of young readers. Moreover, the library offers summer reading
programs to county students, providing educational opportunities to children who might
otherwise consume a steady diet of television and videogames while school is not in
session. It would be ironic if the library had to cancel these educational programs due to a
lack of funding from the school board, therefore robbing students of summer-time
educational opportunities.
In sum, I am troubled by the school board’s miserly decision to stop
funding the public library. This decision can be characterized only as short-sighted in that
it sacrifices the long-term educational benefits of a sufficiently-funded public library
system in favor of the school board’s short-term benefit of immediate control of a few
more dollars of its budget. I am even more troubled, however, that a majority of this
Court permitted the school board to carry out its ill-conceived decision. This is especially
so in light of the fact that the result reached by the majority is directly contrary to an
explicit legislative mandate and precedent of this Court and is completely unsupported by
any previously recognized constitutional principle. Accordingly, I dissent.
4