County of Modoc v. Madden

BELCHER, C. Section 25, subdivision 20, of the County Government Act of 1893 (Stats. 1893, p. 346) provides that boards of supervisors have power, under such limitations and restrictions as are prescribed by law, “to establish a salary fund! and also such other county funds as they may deem necessary for the proper transaction of the business of the county, and to transfer moneys from one fund to another, as the public interest may require.”

Section 220 of the same act provides: “For the purpose of [556]paying the salaries provided for in this act, all fees directed to be paid into the county treasury shall be set apart therein as a separate fund, to be known as the salary fund, to be applied to the payment of said salaries. Should the amount received from such source be insufficient, it shall be the duty of the county treasurer from time to time to transfer to said fund from the general fund of the county such sums as may be necessary to pay said salaries as they become due.”

And section 221 of the act provides: “The salaries of such officers named in this act as are entitled to salaries shall be paid monthly out of the county treasury; and it shall be the duty of the auditor, on the first Monday of each and every month, to draw his warrant upon the county treasurer in favor of each of said officers for the amount of salary due him under the provisions of this act for the preceding month.....The treasurer shall pay said warrants on presentation out of the salary fund of the county treasury.”

The salaries of all the county officers of the county of Modoc were regularly paid out of the salary fund of the county for all the months prior to June, 1895, but after paying them no money was left in that fund to pay the said salaries for the month of June. On the twenty-ninth day of June, 1895, the county treasurer transferred from the county general fund to the salary fund the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars and at the time of the transfer that sum of money was actually in the general fund, and was derived from the income and revenue of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895. The said transfer was entered upon the books of the treasurer and county auditor, and from the money so transferred the treasurer paid all the warrants issued for salaries for the month of June. The warrants so paid aggregated the sum of fourteen hundred and thirty dollars and eighty cents, and after paying them there was still left in the salary fund, of the money so transferred, the sum of two thousand and sixty-nine dollars and twenty cents. At the same time there were other claims against the county, aggregating the sum of two thousand dollars, which had been duly presented to, approved, and allowed by the board of supervisors, and for which warrants had been drawn on the general fund. These warrants could only be paid out of the