of the same, That so much of the act 6% to which this is a supplement, as abolishes independent districts at present established under special acts of assembly, shall not take effect until the first day of June, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.7 When act to take effect. Proceedings to continue independent school districts. 912. That the continuance of independent districts beyond the period named in the foregoing section, may be allowed, when on the application of the directors of any such district to the judges of the court of common pleas of the county in which any portion of said district may be located, setting forth the necessity for its continuance, the said judges may, after careful consideration, decree the same. How rights of property are to be determined. Notice. 913. In all cases where the said court shall refuse to allow a further continuance of any such district, they shall be authorized and required, also, to determine the rights of property vested in the several school boards in any such district, and make proper disposition of the same: Provided, That the board of school directors of the townships out of which any such applying independent school district may be formed, shall have received ten days' notice of the proposed application, and of the time and place of hearing.9 Notice. 914. That act does not indeed require, in express terms, that the commissioners shall give notice of the time and place, when and where they will proceed to inquire into the expediency of establishing the new municipal division. But the public interests, as well as justice to individuals, so obviously require that such notice should be given, that it has always been held that the want of it is fatal to the proceedings: Bethel Township, 1 Pa. 97; Norwegian Township, 20 Pa. 324. It is quite as necessary that this should appear affirmatively, as that it should appear that a party has had his day in court. Every division of a township or school district may affect seriously the interests of the inhabitants, and they have, therefore, a natural right to be heard in the matter.10 Report of commissioners. 915. The requisites of a proceeding to form an independent school district are, in most respects, the same with those necessary to erect a new township. The commissioners are not indeed confined to the consideration of the precise geographical division for which the petitioners ask, and perhaps it is not indispensable, as it is in a proceeding to erect a new township, that the order should contain an express and explicit direction to inquire into the propriety of granting the prayer of the petition, for it is not distinctly required by the act of assembly. And besides, such an inquiry is of no consequence; for, as has been said, they may set off a new district, according to different bounds from those proposed in the petition, and they are to report their opinion on the expediency of a district with the limits which they select. But in all other respects the law requires that the proceedings upon the petition, commission and report, and the final disposition thereof, shall be according to the act of assembly relative to the erection of new townships." In reporting a new district, the commissioners should annex a draft. 916. It is incumbent upon the commissioners to annex a draft to their report, exhibiting both the lines of the independent districts from which it is taken, in order to display the relation which the new district sustains to the old. The 5th section of the act of 8th of May, 1855, does not stop with the provision that the commissioners shall report the lines adopted for the new district, but adds that "the proceedings upon which petition, commission and report, and the final disposition thereof, shall, in all other respects, be 10. Independent School Dist. in Sewickley Township, 33 Pa. 297, 1858. Clearfield Independent School District, 79 Pa. 419, 1875. 11. Independent School Dist. in Sewickley Township, 33 Pa. 297, 1858. according to the act of assembly, now in force, relative to the erection of new townships." That act, to wit, of 15th April, 1834, Sec. 14, requires the commissioners "to make a plot or drafts of the townships proposed to be divided, and the division line proposed to be made therein, or of the township proposed to be laid off." The same duty lies, therefore, upon the commissioners to lay off an independent school district. In the case of Independent District in Sewickley Township, 33 Pa. 297, the fourth exception was in these words: "There was no draft returned by the commissioners of the lines of the new district, nor of the lines of the township from which it was created." Justice Strong quotes the language of this exception, and says, "This is a fatal defect." That these views are justified by the legislative intent we are authorized to believe, by the interpretation of the Act of 1855, summed up in the 1st section of the Act of 20th of May, 1857.* 12 Duties of assessors. 917. That the assessors in each and every township, where any portion of said township may be included within the limits of an independent school district, shall write on their duplicates, opposite to the names of the persons residing within said independent district, the letters I. D., for the information of the collector of said tax and the county commissioners.13 Election of school directors in independent districts. 918. That in all cases in which school directors of independent. districts have not been chosen at the recent spring elections, or on the day specially fixed by law, it shall be lawful for the qualified voters of any such district, to meet at their usual place of holding similar elections, ten days' notice thereof having been given by the late president of the proper board, and shall elect two persons to serve as school directors for the ensuing year; and the remaining *. 12. P. L. 587, Infra 922. Wilkins Township School District, 70 Pa. 108, 1871. 13. Act May 8, 1855, Sec. 3, P. L. 509. members and officers of the board who would have continued in office under the provisions of the supplement to the school law of May eighth, one thousand eight hundred and fiftyfour, be and they are hereby continued in office until the expiration of the terms for which they were originally elected; the said elections shall be held and conducted in the same manner and by the same persons heretofore authorized by law.14 How independent school districts may be formed. 919. That upon petition of not less than twenty taxable inhabitants of any township or townships, desiring the formation of the territory upon which they reside, into a separate and independent common school district, and setting forth the bounds of such proposed district,14% the court of quarter sessions of the proper county shall appoint commissioners to view the premises and report to the court at its next term, the lines of the proposed new district, either according to the bounds set forth in the petition, or to such other bounds as they shall think more advisable, together with their opinion on the expediency of establishing or not establishing the same, the proceedings upon which petition, commission and report, and the final disposition thereof shall, in all other respects, be according to the act of assembly now in force, relative to the erection of new townships: Provided, That if said proceedings result in the establishment of a new common school district, the cost of the commission and the office fees shall be paid by the said new district, but if otherwise, said costs and fees shall be paid by the petitioners themselves. 15 Proceedings upon erection of new independent school districts. 920. That whenever a new district shall be erected according to the provisions of this act, it shall become, to all intents and purposes of the common school system of the state, a separate and independent district, subject, however, to the provisions of the third and fourth sec 14. Act May 8, 1855, Sec. 4, P. L. 509. 14%. Notice must be given as in section two, supra 913, 914. tions of the act to which this is a supplement; and the proper court of quarter sessions shall moreover determine, on hearing, whether an undue proportion of the real estate and school houses belonging to the old district or districts are within the bounds of the new district, and if so, how much money shall be paid therefor by the new to the old district or districts, and in what proportions and at what time; and vice versa, if less than its due share of real estate or school houses is within said new district, how much shall be paid to it by the old district or districts, and in what proportions and at what times; the order for the payment of which several sums shall, from the date thereof, be in the nature of a judgment, and the amount recoverable according to the provisions of the twenty-first section of the act 16 to which this is a supplement."7 Duties of county commissioners. 921. That at the next annual assessment after the erection of any such new common school district, it shall be the duty of the county commissioners of the proper county to cause a separate assessment of the subjects and things liable to school tax in each portion of the new district lying within his proper township to be made out by the proper assessor thereof, and to be returned to them, wherefrom, after adjustment, they shall cause to be made a correct copy of the assessment thus obtained, in every portion of the new district, and shall furnish the same to the secretary thereof, in accordance with the 29th section of the act to which this is a supplement; 18 and they shall, in like manner and at the same time, cause to be made out and furnished to the state superintendent of common schools, a full list of all the taxable inhabitants of said new district, according to the provisions of the 49th section of the act to which this is a supplement; 19 and they shall pay out of the county funds to 16. Act May 8, 1854, Sec. 21, P. L. 617, supra 65. 17. 18. 19. Act May 8, 1855, Sec. 6, P. L. 509. Act May 8, 1854, Sec. 29, P. L. 617, Supra TAXATION 400, 401, 402. |