HUNTINGTON – A Cabell Circuit Court judge has ruled the county library and local park district are entitled to receiving funding from the county’s excess levy.
In August, the Cabell County Board of Education voted to reduce funding to the Cabell County Public Library and to eliminate funding to the Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District, the two entities have filed a petition to get that money.
The library and park district filed their petition September 14 in Cabell Circuit Court against the board.
On November 17, attorney Marc Williams said Circuit Judge Gregory Howard ruled in favor of the library and park district. Howard found the board did not have the right to take excess levy money earmarked for the parks and library.
Citing a 2013 state Supreme Court ruling about similar issues in Kanawha County, the Cabell school board had maintained legislative mandates to fund the parks and library were unconstitutional. That 2013 opinion affected nine “special act counties,” but Cabell wasn’t one of those. The Supreme Court “chose not to apply it’s ruling to Cabell’s special act.”
The difference, according to Williams, is the 2013 Supreme Court ruling wasn’t about an excess levy. He said that makes the issue different because voters decide on excess levies.
“It’s a huge win for the park board and the library,” Williams told The West Virginia Record. “But it’s important to note this isn’t for anything more than the status quo. The school board will have to payments due to the park board and library, and it also will ensure the parks and library are on the next excess levy.
“It will go forward with the same funding amounts, which vary from year to year because it’s based on the total assessed value of property in the county. This ruling just ensures the school board can’t use the money set aside for the parks and library because it has a budget shortfall.”
Howard’s final order hasn’t been entered yet, but it will be done so soon to expedite the process of ensuring 2024 excess levy ballots are correct.
On August 1, the school board approved an order to reduce excess levy funds for the library from about $1.5 million to less than $200,000. The order also completely eliminated park district funding, which usually received about $450,000. The levy is scheduled to be on the May 2024 primary election ballot. If it is approved, it would go into effect in 2025.
In addition, the school board told the library and park district they would only receive required fiscal year 2023 funds and not additional funds that usually are provided to reflect actual property tax collections. So, the library received its $1.47 million but not an additional $100,000 expect equalization check. The park district received $455,000 but not an additional $31,000 equalization.
“We are filing this action in order to preserve the funding for the public library and the park board that the Board of Education is legally obligated to provide,” Williams, who is representing the library and park district, previously told The Record. “Cabell County voters approved this excess levy in 2018, and the board is required by law to provide that funding through 2024.
“The board has no right to unilaterally decide that they are no longer going to comply with their legal obligations. We had no choice but to file this lawsuit to force the board to comply with their legal obligations.”
The petition says library funding is outlined in the 1967 Acts of the West Virginia Legislature, and park district funding is in the 1983 Acts of the West Virginia Legislature.
According to the petition, the school board told the library earlier this year it would not be sending the equalization check of about $312,000 for the fiscal year 2024. It also told the park district it would not be getting that check for $96,000.
The groups’ petition seeks a writ of mandamus requiring the school board to issue funds from the current excess levy order. It also seeks a declaratory judgment order saying the special acts requiring the school board to give funds to the library and parks are constitutional as well as seeks a temporary injunction requiring payments to continue for the current excess levy and the library and parks be included on the proposed excess levy for the amounts required by the special acts.
Williams, managing partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough’s Huntington office, said the library and park district want to resolve the issue quickly. The petition says the matter will be ready for trial in December.
According to the petition, the board has based its funding decision on state Supreme Court rulings, including a similar one from Kanawha County. The Supreme Court ruled the school board was being unfairly required to fund local libraries from its levy.
But the Cabell petition says this issue is different because the Kanawha matter was a regular levy instead of an excess levy passed by voters. Also, the Kanawha case didn’t include a park district.
Also, the petition argues that the school board doesn’t have the authority to determine if the special legislative acts are unconstitutional. It notes that the funds never were meant to be part of the school board budget, saying the money is supposed to be “deposited in a special account” of the library board of directors and the park board.
The library and park district are being represented by Williams, Randall Saunders, Thomas Hancock and Alexander Frampton of Nelson Mullins and by Dennis Taylor and Debra Price of Taylor Conway Price in Huntington.
Cabell Circuit Court case number 23-C-339