State ex rel. Barton v. Hopkins

Citations

• 14 Wash. 59
• 44 P. 550
• 1896 Wash. LEXIS 308

Syllabus

<p>COUNTY INDEBTEDNESS — ASSIGNMENT OF TAXES — CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATION OF INDEBTEDNESS — COMPUTATION — UNPAID TAXES ABE ASSETS — BONDED INDEBTEDNESS — EFFECT ON LIMIT FOE ORDINARY EXPENSES.</p> <p>The county commissioners cannot assign a portion of the delinquent taxes of any year to a creditor of the county in payment of his claim.</p> <p>Under the statutes of this state providing that warrants shall be paid in the order of their dates, without regard to the year in which they were issued, those for any particular year would not be a first charge upon the revenues for that year.</p> <p>The cash assets of a county may be deducted from its outstanding indebtedness for the purpose of determining its amount within the meaning of the constitutional provision on the subject of indebtedness.</p> <p>In computing the cash assets of a county for the purpose of making deductions from the amount of its indebtedness, not only the taxes levied for the current year, but unpaid delinquent taxes constitute a part of the cash assets of the county until the lien of the tax has been merged in a sale of the property.</p> <p>The submission to the voters of a county of the question of the issuance of bonds for the purpose of erecting a court house in an amount which, together with the outstanding indebtedness, should not exceed five per cent, of the assessed valuation of the property in the county, the county at the time being indebted beyond the one and one-half per cent, limit, shows a manifest intent that the bonds to be issued for the special purpose of erecting a court house should have no relation to the one and one-half per cent, indebtedness then owing by the county, and consequently the amount- of such bonds constitutes no part of the one and one-half per cent, of indebtedness allowed to be incurred for ordinary expenses.</p>