MS 2020-07-B-Akins-June-26-2020-Distribution-of-Funds-Received-Pursuant-to-Miss-Code-Ann-Se 2020-06-26

How does a Mississippi county split federal national-forest payments between two school districts when the forest land sits in both?

Short answer: The Board of Supervisors had discretion to choose the formula. Section 49-19-23 told the county to spend 50% of the federal Weeks Act receipts on schools, but did not require a per-acre, per-pupil, or any specific allocation between districts. The Board could split it by acreage, enrollment, or any other equitable measure it adopted.

Disclaimer: This is an official Mississippi Attorney General opinion. AG opinions are persuasive authority but not binding precedent. This summary is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Consult a licensed Mississippi attorney for advice on your specific situation.

Plain-English summary

Tippah County receives federal money under the 1911 Weeks Act because national forest land sits within its boundaries. Mississippi law, Miss. Code Ann. § 49-19-23, requires the county to spend 50% of those receipts "for the benefit of the public schools," with the rest available either for roads or schools at the Board of Supervisors' option. Tippah's twist: national forest land sits in two school districts, North Tippah and South Tippah, and the county had erroneously withheld the school portion for several years. The county wanted to back-pay the school share by splitting it 80/20 in line with the percentage of national forest acreage in each district.

The AG concluded the statute does not pick a formula. The legislature could have written one (per acre of forest land, per enrolled pupil, equal split) but did not. Without a statutory mandate, the Board of Supervisors had discretion to choose any allocation it found equitable, and the AG's prior opinions and a 1954 Mississippi Supreme Court case backed that reading. The AG declined to address the second question (whether the receiving school district had to escrow or could spend the funds in the current year) because the requesting county did not have authority to ask about a different agency's actions under § 7-5-25.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2020. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Background and statutory framework

The Weeks Act of 1911 created the legal pathway for the federal government to acquire national forest land in the eastern United States. As part of that scheme, Congress authorized payments back to states and counties hosting national forest land, in lieu of property taxes the federal land would otherwise pay. Mississippi codified the receiving rules in Miss. Code Ann. § 49-19-23. The state treasurer apportions the federal money to the affected counties in proportion to forest acreage. The receiving county must then spend at least 50% on public schools; the other 50% can go to public roads or, at the Board's discretion, also to schools.

The statute carves out special rules for counties holding 160,253 acres of national forest land within three supervisor districts (a description that matches a specific Mississippi county) and for counties traversed by the Chickasawhay River where U.S. 84 and U.S. 45 intersect. Tippah County did not fit either special-rule scenario, so the general default rule controlled.

What the statute does not do, and the question Tippah's attorney asked, is tell the county how to allocate the school-portion among multiple school districts when more than one district contains forest land. The AG had answered this question before. In 1985, asked by Sharkey County whether the right metric was student headcount or forest acreage, the AG said neither metric was statutorily required. In 1954, the Mississippi Supreme Court in State v. Board of Sup'rs of Perry County said the same thing more pointedly: "the legislature has not seen fit to require that the funds be apportioned to the several road districts or school districts in which the national forest lands are located according to the forest land acreage of each such district, and in the absence of such statutory requirement the court has no authority to compel the board of supervisors to apportion the funds in that manner." That is the holding the AG extended to Tippah.

Common questions

Q: Did the AG endorse the 80/20 acreage split that Tippah County proposed?
A: Not specifically. The AG said the choice of formula was within the Board's discretion, full stop. The 80/20 acreage split was one defensible approach. A pupil-based split or an equal split would also be defensible, as long as the Board adopted the choice in its minutes and the choice was not arbitrary.

Q: Why couldn't the AG answer the question about whether North Tippah had to escrow the funds?
A: Mississippi AG opinions are restricted by Miss. Code Ann. § 7-5-25 to questions of state law for the requesting official's own agency. Tippah's attorney represented the county, not the school district. The school district would have had to make its own opinion request to ask whether its incoming funds were "additional funds" available for current spending or had to be escrowed.

Q: What if the Board of Supervisors had withheld school funds for years and now had to pay catch-up?
A: The opinion did not address how to compute the catch-up amount or interest. The discretionary apportionment rule would still apply to the back-pay, so the Board would set the formula by which the multi-year arrearage was split between the two districts.

Q: Could the county have used an unrelated formula like equal-per-district?
A: The Mississippi Supreme Court's reasoning in Perry County does not narrow the discretion to acreage or enrollment. Any reasoned allocation, recorded in the Board's minutes, would have been within statutory authority.

Citations and references

Statutes:
- Miss. Code Ann. § 49-19-23 (Distribution of federal Weeks Act forest receipts to counties and school districts)
- Miss. Code Ann. § 7-5-25 (Limits AG opinions to questions affecting the requesting agency)

Cases:
- State v. Board of Sup'rs of Perry County, 73 So. 2d 169 (Miss. 1954)

Prior AG opinions:
- MS AG Op., Weissinger (October 28, 1985)
- MS AG Op., Bryant (August 30, 1985)
- MS AG Op., Cartier (August 30, 1985)
- MS AG Op., Mabus (November 16, 1984)
- MS AG Op., Mabry (December 18, 1984)

Source

Original opinion text

June 26, 2020

B. Sean Akins, Esq.
Attorney for the Tippah County Board of Supervisors
108 East Jefferson Street
Ripley, Mississippi 38663

Re: Distribution of Funds Received Pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. Section 49-19-23

Dear Mr. Akins:

The Office of the Attorney General is in receipt of your request for the issuance of an official opinion.

Questions Presented

Is it within the discretion of the Board of Supervisors to allocate the 50% portion of the total funds received by the County pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. Section 49-19-23 to its public schools based upon the percentage of national forest land located within each respective school district?

Should the North Tippah School Board escrow those funds distributed by the County pursuant to Section 49-19-23 or may those funds be considered as "additional funds" so as to enable spending by the school district during the current tax year?

Background Facts

Tippah County has received funds for years pursuant to Section 49-19-23, which provides for federal funds to be paid to those counties which have national forest lands included within their boundaries. While the law requires the County to expend fifty percent (50%) of such funds received pursuant to the Federal Weeks Act for the benefit of the public schools, Tippah County recently learned it had erroneously withheld the distribution of these funds for several years. The North Tippah School Board has requested the County pay those funds due to the North Tippah School District. However, since national forest land is located within two Tippah County school districts, the Board would like to divide the 50% portion attributable to the school district between the North Tippah School District and the South Tippah School District based roughly upon the percentage of national forest land located within each district. Based upon the respective percentages of national forest land located within each school district, the North Tippah School District will receive 80% of the 50% portion for schools and the South Tippah School District would receive 20% of the 50% portion for schools.

Brief Response

Section 49-19-23 does not set forth a specific formula by which the County must apportion the funds it has received to the school districts in which national forest lands are located. In the absence of such a statutory requirement, it is within the discretion of the Board of Supervisors to determine the distribution of the funds received pursuant to Section 49-19-23.

Miss. Code Ann. Section 7-5-25 provides the Office of the Attorney General the authority to issue official opinions upon matters of state law as they relate to the requestor's own office or agency. For this reason, we are unable to issue an official opinion in response to your second question which pertains to action on the part of the North Tippah School District.

Applicable Law and Analysis

Section 49-19-23 states as follows:

All moneys paid to the State of Mississippi by the United States, on account of national forest lands in Mississippi, established under the provisions of the Weeks Law, so-called, being an Act of Congress, approved March 1, 1911, and amendments thereto, shall be apportioned by the state treasurer to the several counties in which such national forest lands are or may be, in proportion to the area of such national forest lands in each, as determined by the forest service of the United States Department of Agriculture.

The several sums so apportioned to each county shall be paid over by the state treasurer to the county depository within sixty (60) days after receipt thereof, and fifty percent (50%) of such funds received by the county shall be expended for the benefit of the public schools, and the remaining fifty percent (50%) of such funds shall, in the discretion of the board of supervisors, be expended for the benefit of the public roads or of the public schools of the school districts within which national forest lands may be located.

In any area affected not having a school located therein, all of such funds may be expended on roads.

In counties containing one hundred sixty thousand, two hundred fifty-three (160,253) acres of national forest lands located solely within three (3) supervisors districts, if the board of supervisors elects to apportion fifty percent (50%) of the funds so received to public roads, the funds shall be expended upon the public roads within the supervisors district or districts within which the national forest lands are located.

In counties containing one hundred sixty thousand, two hundred fifty-three (160,253) acres of national forest lands located solely within three (3) supervisors districts, that portion of the funds allocated to public schools may, within the discretion of the county school board, be expended for the public schools within the county wherein the national forest lands are located.

In any county wherein there is located a national forest traversed by the Chickasawhay River and in which U. S. Highways 84 and 45 intersect, all such funds so received shall be expended in such manner as the board of supervisors shall determine in the public interest for the maintenance of public roads and support of the public schools.

By a 1985 opinion request, Sharkey County, Mississippi, asked whether it should distribute that portion of its proceeds received pursuant to Section 49-19-23 to the county's school districts based upon the number of school children educated or the number of square miles of forest land located within each respective school district. In response, we opined that Section 49-19-23 does not set out a formula by which the County must distribute its proceeds to the school districts received by virtue of forest lands located within the county. MS AG Op., Weissinger (October 28, 1985); see also, MS AG Op., Bryant (August 30, 1985); MS AG Op., Cartier (August 30, 1985); MS AG Op., Mabus (November 16, 1984); MS AG Op., Mabry (December 18, 1984).

In doing so, we cited State v. Board of Sup'rs of Perry County, 73 So. 2d 169 (Miss. 1954), a case in which the Supreme Court stated that the legislature "has not seen fit to require that the funds be apportioned to the several road districts or school districts in which the national forest lands are located according to the forest land acreage of each such district, and in the absence of such statutory requirement the court has no authority to compel the board of supervisors to apportion the funds in that manner." While the legislature could have provided for the distribution of the forest funds by a prescribed formula, it did not. Thus, it remains the opinion of this office that the distribution of the proceeds received by the county pursuant to Section 49-19-23 may be made as the Board of Supervisors, in its discretion, deems equitable.

If this office may be of any further assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

LYNN FITCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By: /s/ Kim P. Turner
Kim P. Turner
Assistant Attorney General