Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion

Hon. Richard S. Morris. Opinion No. O-3037. County Attorney Rer Validity of maturity schedule Armstrong County ,~: of bonds voted by the Claude Inde- Claude, Texas pendent School District. Dear Sir: We are in rece$pt,of~your letter of January 8, re- questing our opinion upon the question arising from,the follow- ing state of facts: “The Claude Independent School Ikstrict recent- ly voted $14,000 in bonds for certain authorized purposes and the petition order of, election. aud notlce thereof set forth ihe’ following ,maturity schedule of such bonds: ‘To become due and payable serially $500.00 ten years from their date and $500.- 00 each year thereafter up to and including the year 1961.and .$lOO.OO each year thereafter during the years 1962 to 1970, both inclusive, ***ID Article 2786, of Vernon@s Annotated Civil Statutes, provides that bonds of independent school districts shall mature in serial annual Installments over a period of not ex- ceeding forty years from their date. This department has heretofore construed this language of the statute to require all bonds voted by a school district to mature in serial annual Installments the first of which installments shall mature with- in one year hrom the date of the issuance of such bonds and that for each year thereafter up to the final maturity 8ate a portion of the principal must be retired. Such has been the construction and rule of this department since the enactment of the statute. We, therefore, advise that we will be unable to ap- prove bonds of Claude Independent School District providing a maturity schedule such as is outlined in your letter. Further9 we are of the opinion that another election will be necessary for the reason that the statutes provide that whenever the propo- sition to issue bonds is to be voted on in any independent school district the petition, election order and the notice of election must dls ?A.netlv soeci fe the amount of the bonds, the rate of Hon. Richard S.. Zorris, page 2 interest, their maturity dates and the purpose for which the bonds are to be used. And for the Board of Trustees to at- tempt to Issue the bonds on a maturity schedule different from that contained in the petition, election order and notice of election, would, we think, be contrary to law. In other words, the bonds issued by the Board of Trustees would not be in con- formity with the bonds authorized by the voters, without whose authorit the bonds could not be issued. See Article 2784, Se&ion c , Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes. Yours very truly ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS B /s/ Clarence E. Crowe CParence E. Crowe, Assistant APPROVED JAN 22, 1941 /s/ Grover Sellers FIRST ASSISTANTATTORNEY GENERAL ~APPROVED: OPINIONCOMMITTEE BY: BWB, CHAIRMAN CEC:s:wb