Smith v. Kicklighter
Smith v. Kicklighter
Opinion of the Court
The exception in this case is to an order making a writ of mandamus absolute and requiring the defendants as members of the Board of Education of Evans County to pay the plaintiff a sum of money equal to four cents per mile per month for each mile traveled during 1949-1950 in driving a school bus owned by the county, which sum is in addition to his basic salary as a driver. Under sec. 1 of the act of the General Assembly (Ga. L. 1947, p. 1461), the State Board of Education was authorized to use a part of the common-school funds to pay the salaries of bus drivers employed by county boards of education and to administer “all funds allocated or appropriated or otherwise made available by the State of Georgia for pupil transportation.” Code (Ann.) § 32-423. In the general appropriation act of 1949 (Ga. L. 1949, p. 1506), under the heading of appropriations for general educational purposes, after appropriating a specific sum for common-school purposes, the General Assembly attached the following proviso: “Provided that the State Board of Education shall establish the necessary rules and regulations so. that the necessary amount of the funds distributed to school systems for administrative purposes from the funds hereby appropriated shall be used specifically for additional compensation of bus drivers and said funds shall be distributed monthly during a school term to the county school systems on the basis of four cents per mile for the total route miles traveled each month by school bus for school purposes as reported to the State Department of Education for the school year 1946-1947. The State Board of Education shall fix minimum salaries for bus drivers. Provided, further, each bus driver shall receive additional compensation above the amount of compensation in force and effect for the school year 1946-1947, on the basis of four cents per mile for the total route miles, traveled each month driving a school bus, during a school term
The plaintiff contends that, under the provisions of the general appropriations act quoted above, each bus driver for the year 1949-1950 should receive additional compensation, above the amount of compensation in force and effect for the year 1946-1947, at the rate of four cents per mile; and that he is entitled to four cents per mile on the total mileage traveled on his route during 1949-1950 in addition to his regular compensation. Under the pleadings and the agreed statement of facts— which clearly show that a salary was not paid by the Evans County Board of Education to the driver of the school bus on route No. 8 in 1946-1947, and that therefore there was no basic salary established for that route in that year — we can not conclude as a matter of law that the compensation paid to the plaintiff for the school year 1949-1950 did not include the four cents per mile provided in the act of 1949, supra, and paid to the county Board of Education by the State Board of Education. We cannot agree with the plaintiff’s contention that,
Judgment reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.