Election of commissioners.

future elections or proceedings for assessments in said village.

S5. This act shall take effect immediately.

Chap. 406.

AN ACT to amend an act entitled "An act to revise and consolidate the general acts relating to public instruction," passed May second, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, and to abolish rate bills authorized by special act.

Passed April 16, 1867; three-fifths being present. The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. Chapter five hundred and fifty-five of the laws of eighteen hundred and sixty-four is hereby amended as follows: Section three of title two is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

3. The school commissioner for each school commissioner district shall be elected by the electors thereof, by separate ballot, at the general election, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, and triennially thereafter, and the ballots shall be indorsed "school commissioner." The laws regulating the election of and canvassing the votes for county officers shall apply to such elections. And it shall further be the duty of county clerks, and they are hereby required, as soon as they shall have official Instruction. notice of the election or appointment of a school

County clerk to certify to superintendent of public

To direct trustees to make repairs.

commissioner, for any district in their county, to forward to the Superintendent of Public Instruction a duplicate certificate of such election or appointment, attested by their signature and the seal of the county.

S2. Subdivisions three and four of section thirteen of title two are hereby amended so as to read as follows:

3. Upon such examination, to direct the trustees to make any alteration or repair on the school-house or out-buildings which shall, in his opinion, be necessary to the health or comfort of the pupils, but the expense of making such alterations or repairs shall,

in no case, exceed the sum of two hundred dollars, unless an additional sum shall be voted by the district. He may also direct the trustees to abate any To abate nuisance in or upon the premises, provided the same can be done at an expense not exceeding twenty-five dollars.

nuisance.

Condem

nation of

school

houses.

estmate of

sary to

house.

call special

meeting.

4. In concurrence with the supervisor of the town in which a school-house is situated, by an order under their hands, reciting the reason or reasons, to condemn such school-house, if they deem it wholly unfit for use and not worth repairing, and to deliver the order to the trustees, or one of them, and transmit a copy to the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Such order, if no time for its taking effect be stated in it, shall take effect immediately. They shall also state To make an what sum, not exceeding eight hundred dollars, will, sum neces in their opinion, be necessary to erect a school-house build schoolcapable of accommodating the children of the district. Immediately upon the receipt of said order, Trustees to the trustee or trustees of such district shall call a special meeting of the inhabitants of said district, for the purpose of considering the question of building a school-house therein. Such meeting shall have power to determine the size of said school-house, the material to be used in its erection, and to vote a tax to build the same; but such meeting shall have no power to reduce the estimate made by the commissioner and supervisor aforesaid by more than twentyfive per cent of such estimate. And where no tax for Trustees to building such house shall have been voted by such district within thirty days from the time of holding the first meeting to consider the question, then it shall be the duty of the trustee or trustees of such district to contract for the building of a school-house capable of accommodating the children of the district, and to levy a tax to pay for the same, which tax shall not exceed the sum estimated as necessary by the commissioner and supervisor as aforesaid, and which shall not be less than such estimated sum by more than twenty-five per cent thereof. But such estimated sum may be increased by a vote of the inhabitants at any school meeting subsequently called and held according to law.

levy tax.

State tax for support of schools.

Comptroller may withhold

moneys

from counties.

$ 3. Section one of title three is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

1. There shall be raised by tax, in the present and each succeeding year, upon the real and personal estate of each county within the State, one mill and one-fourth of a mill upon each and every dollar of the equalized valuation of such estate, for the support of common schools in the State; and the proceeds of such tax shall be apportioned and distributed as herein provided.

S 4. Section four of title three is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

§ 4. The Comptroller may withhold the payment of any moneys, to which any county may be entitled, from the appropriation of the incomes of the school fund and the United States deposit fund for the sup port of common schools, until satisfactory evidence shall be furnished to him that all moneys required by law to be raised by taxation upon such county, for the support of schools throughout the State, have been collected and paid, or accounted for to the State Treasurer; and whenever, after the first day of March tendent may in any year, in consequence of the failure of any

Treasurer and superin

borrow moneys.

May alter

any district

with con

sent of trustees.

county to pay such moneys on or before that day, there shall be a deficiency of moneys in the treasury applicable to the payment of school moneys, to which any other county may be entitled, the Treasurer and Superintendent of Public Instruction are hereby authorized to make a temporary loan of the amount so deficient, and such loan, and the interest thereon at the rate of twelve per cent per annum, until payment shall be made to the treasury, shall be a charge upon the county in default, and shall be added to the amount of State tax, and levied upon such county by the board of supervisors thereof at the next ensuing assessment, and shall be paid into the treasury in the same manner as other taxes.

$5. Section two of title six is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

§ 2. With the written consent of the trustees of all the districts to be affected thereby, he may, by order, alter any school-district within his jurisdiction, and

fix, by said order, a day when the alteration shall take effect.

S6. Section three of title six is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

§ 3. If the trustees of any such district refuse to consent, he may make and file with the town clerk his order making the alteration, but reciting the refusal, and directing that the order shall not take effect, as to the dissenting district or districts, until a day therein to be named, and not less than three months after the notice in the next section mentioned. S7. Section twelve of title seven is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

When to

take effect.

Procedure tees refuse alteration.

when trus

consent to

cations.

12. Every male person of full age residing in any voters, neighborhood or school-district, and entitled to hold their qualif lands in this State, who owns or hires real property in such neighborhood or school-district liable to taxation for school purposes, and every resident of such neighborhood or district authorized to vote at town. meetings of the town in which he resides, who has permanently residing with him a child or children of school age, some one or more of whom shall have attended the district school for a period of at least eight weeks within one year preceding, or who owns any personal property liable to be taxed for school purposes in any such district, exceeding fifty dollars in value, exclusive of such as is exempt from execution, and no other shall be entitled to vote at any school meeting held in such neighborhood or district.

S 8. Section sixteen of title seven is hereby amended by adding thereto the following subdivision:

deficiency in teacher'

§ 16. To vote a tax to pay whatever deficiency Tax for there may be in teachers' wages after the public w money apportioned to the district shall have been applied thereto; but if the inhabitants shall neglect or refuse to vote a tax for this purpose, or if they shall vote a tax which shall prove insufficient to cover such deficiency, then the trustees are authorized, and it is hereby made their duty, to raise by district tax, any reasonable sum that may be necessary to pay the balance of teachers' wages remaining unpaid, the same as if such tax had been authorized by a vote of the inhabitants.

Tax for school house, if

over $1,000, approved by

must be

commissioner.

$9. Section eighteen of title seven, is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

§ 18. No tax voted by a district meeting for building, hiring or purchasing a school-house, exceeding the sum of one thousand dollars, shall be levied by the trustees, unless the commissioner, in whose district the school-house of said district is situated, shall certify in writing, his approval of such larger sum. S 10. Section nineteen of title seven is hereby

Tax may be amended so as to read as follows:

raised by installments.

Cannot extend

beyond five years.

Clerk to notify offcers of their election.

§ 19. Whenever the majority of all the inhabitants of any school-district entitled to vote, to be ascertained by taking and recording the ayes and noes of such inhabitants attending at any annual, special or adjourned school-district meeting, legally called or held, shall determine that the sum proposed and provided for in the next preceding section shall be raised by installments, it shall be the duty of the trustees of such district, and they are hereby authorized, to cause the same to be raised, levied and collected in equal installments, in the same manner and with the like authority that other school-district taxes are raised, levied and collected, and to make out their tax list and warrant for the collection of such installments, with interest thereon as they become payable, according to the vote of the said inhabitants; but the payment or collection of the last installment shall not be extended beyond five years from the time such vote was taken, aud no vote to levy any such tax shall be reconsidered except at an adjourned, general or special meeting, to be held within thirty days thereafter, and the same majority shall be required for reconsideration that was had to impose such tax.

S 11. Section twenty-eight of title seven is hereby amended so as to read as follows:

§ 28. It shall be the duty of the district clerk, and of the neighborhood clerk, or of any person who shall act as clerk at any district or neighborhood meeting, when any officer shall be elected, forthwith to give the person elected notice thereof in writing; and such person shall be deemed to have accepted the office, unless within five days after the service of such notice, he shall file his written refusal of it with the