What records are boards required to keep? Who may inspect such records? State fully what is required of boards relative to publishing receipts and disbursements. What estimates are boards required to present to annual meetings? What action should be taken upon such estimate at a district meeting? What estimates may be reduced? What estimates cannot be reduced? What estimates may be increased? If a district meeting should refuse to vote a tax for teachers' salaries, what action may a board take? What in case of contingent expenses? How may disputes relative to contingent expenses be settled? When should a board of education present an estimate to the corporate authorities of a city or village? For what should such estimate be made? What is the duty of such corporate authorities when such estimate is properly presented to them? What is the duty of such corporate authorities when the district has voted an expenditure for sites or buildings?

What meetings must boards of education hold? How often? Must these meetings be public? What are executive meetings? What provision should a board make for visitation of schools?

Who holds the school funds in a union free-school district whose boundaries coincide with those of an incorporated village or a city? How must the funds of such district be kept? What additional security must such treasurer give? How are the funds of such district disbursed? Who holds the funds of a union free-school district whose boundaries do not coincide with those of an incorporated village or a city? How are such funds disbursed?

What supervision has the Commissioner of Education over union freeschools? Over boards of education? What reports are boards of education required to make? When? To whom? Where should each report be filed? What information should it contain?

When may an academy be adopted as the academic department of a union free school? State fully what steps should be taken in proceedings of this kind. When may a board lease an academy and its site? What is the rule in relation to the payment of expenses of members of boards of education while attending educational conventions? Explain the authority of a board of education to issue certificates of indebtedness. Who may establish night schools? Who is eligible to attend? Who possesses the power to establish kindergartens? What is the power and duty of the board with respect to the employment of a medical inspector? School nurse? When may a board of education authorize the medical inspection of children in attendance upon schools?

CHAPTER XIV

ASSESSMENT AND COLLECTION OF DISTRICT TAXES

[Article 15]

Assessment of Taxes by Trustees. It is the duty of the trustees to assess upon the taxable property of the district all taxes voted by a district meeting for the current school year and to make out a tax-list immediately therefor. A tax voted for the ensuing school year should be assessed and the tax-list therefor issued within thirty days after August first following. The courts of the State have held, however, that the law in this respect is only directory and that trustees may issue a tax-list and warrant after the expiration of thirty days from the date the tax was voted.

In assessing a tax voted by the district, trustees may also assess at the same time a tax which they are authorized to assess without a vote of the district and may include two or more taxes in one tax-list.

A tax-list is not complete until it has passed from the trustees to the officer whose duty it is to collect it, and any time before its completion it may be altered and amended by the trustees.

Chapter 502, Laws of 1902, provides that any town in St. Lawrence county may adopt a uniform system of taxation for school purposes at a biennial town meeting. The details of the law may be found by consulting the session laws of 1902.

Chapter 518, Laws of 1918, provides that in Suffolk county taxes for school purposes shall be extended upon the town tax roll. By reference to this statute the detailed plan for the assessment, levy and collection of school taxes in said county will be found.

Heading on Tax-List.- The law directs that trustees shall prefix to each tax-list a heading showing the purpose for which the different items of the tax are raised. Any tax-list not containing this heading will upon appeal be set aside by the Commissioner of Education. The details of each item need not be set forth. If an item is for repairs, it is sufficient to state, "For repairs on schoolhouse, $25.00," and it is not necessary to give each item included in such repairs.

Form of Tax-List.— In making out a tax-list trustees should rule the necessary columns to give the information required in

the form recommended by the State Tax Commissioners to town collectors. The following form is recommended:

1. The first column should contain the names of all the persons and corporations liable to taxation in the district.

2. The second column should show the number of acres of land to be taxed to each person or corporation, and should contain a description of the property taxed.

3. The third column should give the assessed valuation of such land.

4. The fourth column should give the full value of all the taxable personal property of each of the persons or corporations named in the first column.

5. Value of special franchise.

6. Valuation of taxable rents reserved.

7. The total tax assessed against each individual or corporation.

Trustees cannot place upon a tax-list the uncollected taxes of some former tax-list. They cannot increase the assessment upon the property included in a tax-list to make up a loss caused by a failure to assess property upon a former list. If property is omitted from a tax-list and the mistake is not discovered until the taxes are collected and the warrant is returned, it is too late to remedy the mistake.

Apportionment of Taxes Upon Real Estate.- Trustees must apportion district taxes upon all real estate within the boundaries of the district, except that which is exempt by law from taxation. Such property must be assessed to the person or corporation owning or possessing it at the time the tax-list is made out.

Real Estate Lying in One Body but in Two or More Districts.- Lands lying in one body but located in two or more school districts, and occupied by the same person either as owner or as agent for the same principal or tenant under the same land

lord, if assessed as one lot by the town assessors, are taxable in the district in which the occupant of such lands resides.

In cases of this kind four conditions must be found to exist in order to authorize an assessment of the entire property in that district in which the occupant resides. These are:

First. The land must lie in one body. It is not sufficient that such lands shall be joined by a mere point. There must be an actual line of contact.

Second. The title of such lands must be vested in the same person. If there is a joint ownership of such lands, they cannot be assessed under this provision.

Third. The occupancy of such lands must be determined. The whole body of such land must be occupied by one person. This person must be either the owner of such lands or the agent or tenant of one and the same landlord.

Fourth. The lands must have been assessed as one lot on the last assessment roll of the town after revision by the assessors.

All lands of this description which do not comply with the four provisions above given, must be assessed for their respective portions in the district in which such parts are located.

Assessment of Vacant Land.- When any real estate within a district so liable to taxation shall not be occupied and improved by the owner, his servant or agent, and shall not be possessed by any tenant, the trustees of any district, at the time of making out any tax-list by which any tax shall be imposed thereon, shall make and insert in such tax-list a statement and description of every such lot, piece or parcel of land so owned by nonresidents therein, in the same manner as required by law from town assessors in making out the assessment-roll of their towns; and if any such lot is known to belong to an incorporated company liable to taxation in such district, the name of such company shall be specified, and the value of such lot or piece of land shall be set down opposite to such description, which value shall be the same

that was affixed to such lot or piece of land in the last assessment-roll of the town; and if the same was not separately valued in such roll, then it shall be valued in proportion to the valuation which was affixed in the said assessment-roll to the whole tract of which such lot or piece shall be part.

A collector cannot levy upon and sell the personal property of the owner of non-resident land.

But if the owner of real estate in any school district improves and occupies such land himself, or causes it to be improved or occupied by an agent or servant, such owner, in regard to the liability of such property to taxation, is considered a taxable inhabitant of such district. In this case a collector could seize and sell the personal property of the owner of such estate for the amount of school taxes.

If such real estate is occupied by tenants or sub-tenants they are the proper persons to whom such property should be assessed, and not the owner thereof. If such tenants improve the land, although they do not reside on it, they are considered under the law taxable inhabitants of such district.

Assessment of Bank Stock.- A board of education should include in its tax-list real property owned by a bank or banking association organized under the laws of the State or of the United States and located in its district. However, the stock of such bank and the bank's personal property should not be included in such tax list. Bank stock and the personal property of a bank is assessed by the board of supervisors for all State, county, city, village, town and school district purposes. A bank is required to pay a tax of one per cent on the value of its stock to the county treasurer of the county in which the bank is located. No deduction can be made on the value of this stock because of the personal indebtedness of the owners of such stock. The tax must