[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 1132
¶ 1 The dispositive issues on appeal are: [1] Were the actions taken by the Board of County Commissioners of Oklahoma County [commissioners] effective to change the county's 1996-1997 fiscal-year budget (a) through the June 24,1996 resolution disapproving a salary supplement for the district attorney (and his assistants) or (b) through theJanuary 21, 1997 resolution that confined claims for the budgeted salary supplement to only the firsthalf of the fiscal year? and [2] Is a county-funded salary supplement for the district attorney — initiallyauthorized by the *Page 1133 terms of 19 O.S.Supp. 1996 § 215.30[19-215.30]3 and later implemented before the district attorney's term of office had begun — rendered invalid by Art. 23 § 10, Okla. Const.'s4 prohibition against an elected official's salary change during the term of office. We answer all thesequestions in the negative. In sum, the invoked commissioners' actions were ineffective and the cited provision of the constitution does not affect legislatively authorized county salary supplement.
I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION ¶ 2 This is a controversy between Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma County [DA or Macy], and the county commissioners over the latter's refusal to approve payment of the DA's budgeted salary supplement (for him and his assistants) during the 1996-1997 fiscal year.5 The budget in contest was prepared and completed in conformity to the provisions of the County Budget Act.6 That Act authorizes the board of county commissioners to delegate its budget-related functions to a constituted county budget board. Oklahoma County opted for activation of that board. Incontroversy here is the extent of the power the commissionersretained after delegating to the board their budget-relatedresponsibilities.
¶ 3 The DA submitted to the Oklahoma County Budget Board [budget board] an estimate of office needs for fiscal-year 1996-1997, which included $106,244.467 for the DA's (and his assistants') salary supplement. The commissionersvoted on 24 June 1996 to deny that supplement.8 Disregarding this negative resolution, the budget boardincluded in its reported county budget the full amount the DA had requested for the salary supplement. This figure was later *Page 1134 approved by the county excise board.9 On 21 January 1997 the commissioners receded in part from their earlier resolution by approving the DA's salary request but only for the first six months of the fiscal year.10 The Declaratory Judgment Action ¶ 4 The DA pressed at nisi prius for a judicial declaration that (a) because sufficient funds were available for payment, the commissioners were powerless to interfere post factum with the amount that stood appropriated for salary supplement in the budget board's approved county budget and (b) the amount of the supplement (reported by the budget board) became a part of the DA's salary by operation of law and came to be constitutionally frozen for the entire term of his office. The commissioners counterclaimed for the trial court to declarethat11 (a) the power they relinquished by the delegation effected under the provisions of the County Budget Act extended no further than the budget preparation and presentation functions while (b) the authority over budgeting continued to remain under the commissioners' sole management.
¶ 5 The trial court's summary relief to the DA (a)concluded that the commissioners may not deny payment of claims for DA's salary supplement so long as funds are available up to the appropriated amount and (b) declared the included supplement to be free from constitutional restraint.12 The commissioners brought this appeal. *Page 1135 II AUTHORITY OVER THE BUDGET WAS PLACED BEYOND THE REACH OF THE COMMISSIONERS WHEN THE BUDGET BOARD'S FUNCTION PASSED ON TO THE SOLE CONTROL OF THE EXCISE BOARD AND THEN THE PROCESS WAS CARRIED TO FINAL CONCLUSION WITHOUT ANY ANTECEDENT COMMISSIONERS' CHALLENGE TO THE DA SUPPLEMENT'S INCLUSION, EVEN THOUGH THE FINALLY APPROVED BUDGET WAS PLAINLY CONTRARY TO THE COMMISSIONERS' EARLIER VOTE (OF 24 JUNE 1996) AGAINST SALARY SUPPLEMENTS (FOR THE DA AND HIS ASSISTANTS) ¶ 6 This is a controversy over the extent of power the commissioners retained after delegating to the budget board their own budget-related functions. The County Budget Act gives absolutely no textual indication of how much authority over the budget is delegated or retained by the board of county commissioners. We can derive no help from the textual analysis of the Act. The question at hand presents a casusomissus.13 As we analyze the problem at hand, it is unnecessary for this appeal's disposition that we decide the extent of power the commissioners had retained.
¶ 7 Assuming, as we do solely for argument's sake, that the commissioners had the authority to affect the budget beforeit became final, the dispositive issue here is whatlegal effect, if any, the commissioners' June 24, 1996 andJanuary 21, 1997 resolutions had on the criticalappropriation14 that was in fact made forthe DA's 1996-1997 salary supplement.15 Based on this record's contents, we accept the parties' admissions that (a) the budget board — in utter disregard of the June 24 resolution — did in fact include in its budget an appropriation that gave full funding to the DA's office for the entire requested fiscal-year salary supplement,16 and that (b) the budget passed on to the excise board where it was finally approved without any challenge from the commissioners.17 When filed with the excise board, the county budget constitutes an appropriation for each of the included items subject only to the exciseboard's final approval.18 The excise board's role at this terminal stage of the *Page 1136 process is (a) to examine the budget for conformity to the law19 and (b) if the budget will pass legal muster, to certify it as approved.20 A. The June 24, 1996 Resolution ¶ 8 The commissioners' June 24 resolution clearly becameineffective21 when the budget board's process22 had reached finality by ripening into an appropriation sans challenge from the commissioners. The responsibility to prevent the approved DA salary supplement from becoming final rested on the commissioners. The County Budget Act does not divest them — qua governing body of the county23 — of standing tochallenge the budget board's refusal to act in conformity to their resolution. By allowing the budget to reach the terminal stage and thus to be transformed, without protest, into an appropriation,24 the commissioners' inaction permitted the budget board's will to prevail. It is the excise board's approval of the appropriation in contest that imparted to the supplement both its efficacy and finality.
¶ 9 The control over the county budget (1) passesex lege from the budget board to the excise board when the conditions prescribed in 19 O.S. 1991 §§1408-1413[19-1408-19-1413] are met, and (2) as soon as the provisions of 19 O.S. 1991 §§ 1414-1416[19-1414-19-1416] are fulfilled, the budget is placed beyond the excise board'sreach to become an appropriation. That appropriation, whichat its final stage passed the excise board's scrutiny, must controlover any discordant board of commissioners' resolutions which eitherpreceded or followed the de jure budget's birth. For a detailed explanation of these critical stages, the reader is referred to the descriptive material in footnotes 22 and 24.
B. The January 21, 1997 Resolution ¶ 10 The commissioners' January 21, 1997 resolution is asineffective as that of 24 June 1996. It came too late to affect the *Page 1137 completed budget process, which by then stood transmuted by operation of law from a de facto into de jure appropriation. Whatever residue of budget authority the commissioners may claim to have retained under the County Budget Act, their exercise of that power, when interposed too late, cannot effectively interferewith a completed budget process. To allow that process to be undone by an act of the commissioners, taken after the terminalstage, would subject to utter chaos the entire fiscal function of the county. We will not assume that the county's decision to come under the budget act was ever intended to transform an otherwise stable and orderly process into a series of chaotic stages that lack orderly framework. Inshort, when as here, the budget is allowed to arrive at thatterminal point at which it ripens — ex lege and sanschallenge — into an effective appropriation, it is to betreated as having passed beyond the reach of the commissioners'authority.
C. The Solution Tendered By The Author Of A Statement In Disagreement With The Analysis Offered By The Court's Opinion Would Subject The County Budgetary System To A Serious Constitutional Attack ¶ 11 The concurring-in-judgment statement would exclude the commissioners from standing as protestants before the excise board. That view is not only utterly inconsistent with the19 O.S. 1991 § 1415[19-1415]'s plain textual analysis, but would offend against the Art. 5 § 46, Okla.Const., uniformity-of-procedure mandate by injecting havoc into the orderly budget process.25 No Indicia Are Present of Legislative Intent to Discriminate Between Protesters Who Are Equally Affected By A Budget's Illegality ¶ 12 An excise board budget protest generally is limited to the presence of "any alleged illegality" in the county budget.26 Within the meaning of § 1415, the word "taxpayer" includes any governmental entity that has a patentinterest in the county budget. If we failed to consider the commissioners as taxpayers with standing to protest, a large class of persons directly affected by the budget would be excluded from standing to challenge it. That result would clearly be contrary to the legislative intent. The legislature is not presumed to discriminate among persons equally affected by an event or transaction.27 Neither can this court deprive of standing anyone who has a patent interest in the county budget. The county commissioners would have standing to challenge an illegality in the budget as Hohfeldian *Page 1138 plaintiffs28 — persons with a legally cognizable interest at stake. Moreover, the term "taxpayer" is undefined in the County Budget Act.29 We cannot hence read into § 1415's text the intent to exclude a class — not explicitly singled out for that treatment — which is affected by the illegality in a like manner as those persons who pay taxes.
¶ 13 Today's pronouncement does not collide with the notion that only a taxpayer can complain against an ad valoremassessment.30 A § 1415 protest before the excise board against illegality is not an attack on an assessment, but rather on the legal correctness of the budget (or of one of its items). Like any other participant in the county budget process, the commissioners, though budget beneficiaries, have standing to assail any facial legal flaws. Unavailable to "tax consumers" are only protests against tax assessments.31 State Fundamental Law ¶ 14 Art. 5 § 46 mandates in absolute terms statewide procedural uniformity for an entire class of similarly situated persons or things as well as uniformity for regulating affairs of counties.32 The cited constitutional provision proscribes "special" laws that single out for different treatment less than an entire class of similarly situated persons or entities.33 Affording disparate procedural remedies for the removal of an illegality from the budget would offend this State's fundamental law. Tax consumers and tax beneficiaries are affected in a like manner by a county budget's illegality. Giving for the very same inquiry one remedy (of a § 1415 protest) to taxpayers only and quite a *Page 1139 different remedy (of mandamus) to tax consumers for the very same inquiry would create a procedural dichotomy that at once destroys the symmetry of Oklahoma's remedial regime and hence offends the § 46 uniformity-of-procedure mandate. For the sake and in the interest of advancing the public policy's protected goal of achieving certainty for the budget's finality, the two classes (taxpayers and tax consumers) cannot be viewed as permissibly discrete.
¶ 15 Tulsa Tribune Co. v. Okla. Horse RacingCom'n34 teaches that litigants who comprise a class interested in the subject matter must be accorded an identical remedy to vindicate the divergent rights in their interest. There, the legislature created an action for those who would seek a public document's release. The court treated asa single class all those persons with an interest in a public document's release as well as in the suppression of the release. Those who seek to prevent the budget frombecoming final on the grounds of its illegality must all betreated alike as an indivisible class. While the commissioners qua consumers may have goals divergent from taxpayers, they must be accorded an equally effective remedy. In short, the excise board's authority to correct the final budget by revision must also be invocable by the commissioners in order to prevent the extended presence of that illegality which could have been removed by a taxpayer's protest.
¶ 16 When a statute — as § 1415 in this case — may be susceptible of more than one meaning, the court's duty is to give its text that construction which would save the legislation from facial absurdity35 as well as make it impervious to constitutional attack.36 This is the meaning we place on it today.
III THE PROSCRIPTION IN ART. 23 § 10, OKL. CONST., DOES NOT IMPACT THE STATUTE AUTHORIZING SUPPLEMENTATION OF THE DA's SALARY ¶ 17 The DA urges that commissioners' act of refusal to approve payment of the budgeted salary supplement for the remainder of the fiscal year constitutes an unconstitutional attempt to alter the salary of an elected official during his term of office. We reject the tendered notion as contrary to law.37
The pertinent terms of Art. 23 § 10, Okla.Const., are:
"Except wherein otherwise provided in this Constitution, in no case shall the salary or emoluments of any public official be changed after his election or appointment, or during his term of office, unless by operation of law enacted prior to such election or appointment; * * *"
(emphasis supplied).
The "unless" phrase in Art. 23 § 10 permits that change to occur in a public official's salary during his term of office which results from the operation of a statuteenacted before that official's election.38 The salary of an officer may hence be increased (or decreased) after one's election (or during *Page 1140 one's term of office) if the law that operates to effect that salary change was enacted before that officer's election.
¶ 18 The statute authorizing the county to supplement the DA's state salary (19 O.S.Supp. 1996 §215.30[19-215.30](C)(1))39 was enacted in 1990.40 It clearly contemplates salary supplement that is subject to change by the fiscal-year budgetary process. The statute's terms provide that the county "may" supplement the DA's salary based on the statutory formula. Macy's term of office (that is pertinent to this litigation) began in January 1995.41 Because the statutory scheme allowing county supplement was enacted well before Macy's term of office had begun,42 any increase (or decrease) in salary supplement, which is brought about by the county budgetary process, would stand unaffected by the restrictions imposed by Art. 23 § 10.
IV SUMMARY ¶ 19 Macy's salary supplement for fiscal year 1996-1997was effectively converted to an efficacious appropriation. Assuming that the commissioners dohave the power to prevent a supplement's inclusion in thebudget,43 they did not effectively impress their will by a timely challenge to the fund's inclusion (in the budget board's budget) before the excise board had finalized the process and let it ripen into an appropriation. The commissioners' January 21, 1997 resolution that restricts the salary supplement to a six-month period isinefficacious. It took place after the excise board had finalized the budget board's fiscal-year program and thus transformed its content into a dejure appropriation of funds. The county appropriation, which at its final stage withstood the excise board's scrutiny, mustcontrol over any discordant board of commissioners'resolutions that either preceded or followed the de jure budget'sbirth.
¶ 20 Because the statute that allows a county to supplement the DA's state-paid salary was enacted before Macy's term of office had begun, the supplement may be increased (or decreased) by the county budgetary process without offending Art. 23 § 10 of the state fundamental law.
¶ 21 The trial court's summary judgment is accordingly affirmed.
¶ 22 HARGRAVE, V.C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER, SIMMS, OPALA, WILSON and KAUGER, JJ., concur;
¶ 23 SUMMERS, C.J., concurs in judgment but not in the court's opinion;
¶ 24 WATT, J., concurs in part and dissents in part.
"C. * * * The salaries of the district attorneys and the salaries of the assistant district attorneys and their operating and maintenance expenses in each county shall be paid by the state. Provided however:
1. In counties having a population of five hundred fifty thousand (550,000) or more, the salary of the district attorney and assistant district attorneys may be supplemented by the county. Such supplement for the district attorney shall not exceed twenty-five percent (25%) of the salary provided for district attorneys by this section. Such supplement for the assistant district attorneys shall not exceed twenty-five percent (25%) of the salary authorized for assistant district attorneys in Section 215.34[19-215.34] of Title 19 of the Oklahoma Statutes."
(emphasis supplied).
The quoted text was not changed by the 1997 amendment.
In Board of School Trustees of Washington City Administrative Unit v. Benner, 222 N.C. 566, 572, 24 S.E.2d 259, 263 (1943), where the functus officio maxim was applied in a like setting as that in this case, the court stated that "[w]hen the budget is perfected by approval, thepower of the various authorities instigating, adopting andapproving it is functus officio — it is a task performed— and neither these officials, nor any others in theirstead, are clothed with the power of budgetary control, whichmight be invoked to modify its terms" (emphasis supplied).
"The Legislature shall not, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, pass any local or special law authorizing:
* * * * * *
Regulating the affairs of counties . . .;
Regulating the practice or jurisdiction of . . . in judicial proceedings or inquiry before the courts . . . or other tribunals. . . .;"
(emphasis supplied).
Within fifteen (15) days after the filing of any county budget with the State Auditor and Inspector, any taxpayer may file protests against any alleged illegality of the budget in the manner provided by Sections 24104[68-24104] through 24111[68-24111] of Title 68 of the Oklahoma Statutes. If no protest is filed by any taxpayer within the fifteen-day period, the budget and any appropriation thereof shall be deemed legal and final until amended by the county budget board. Taxpayers shall have the right at all reasonable times to examine the budget on file with the county clerk, county excise board or the State Auditor and Inspector for the purpose of checking for illegalities in the levies made or for filing protests in accordance with this section.
(emphasis supplied).
At the primaries and general elections held in 1966, and each four (4) years thereafter, there shall be nominated and elected in each and every District Attorney's district in the State of Oklahoma, a District Attorney, who shall hold office for a term of four (4) years, beginning on the first Monday of January following his election, and until his successor is elected and qualified.