School District Meetings and Voters.

§ 14

qualified voter in, and a taxable inhabitant of said district. Any person elected treasurer at any meeting other than an annual meeting, shall hold office until the next annual meeting after such election, and until his successor shall be elected or appointed, and thereafter a treasurer shall be elected at each annual meeting for the term of one year.

6. To fix the amount in which the collector and treasurer shall give bonds for the due and faithful performance of the duties of their offices.

7. To designate a site for a school-house, or, with the consent of the commissioner or commissioners within whose district or districts the school district lies, to designate sites for two or more school-houses for the district. Such designation of a site or sites for a school-house can be made only at a special meeting of the district, duly called for such purpose by a written resolution in which the proposed site shall be described by metes and bounds, and which resolution must receive the assent of a majority of the qualified voters present and voting, to be ascertained by taking and recording the ayes and noes.

8. To vote a tax upon the taxable property of the district to purchase, lease and improve such site or sites or an addition to such site or sites; to hire or purchase rooms or buildings for school-rooms or school-houses, or to build school-houses; and to keep in repair and furnish the same with necessary fuel, furniture and appendages.

9. To vote a tax, not exceeding twenty-five dollars in any one year, for the purchase of maps, globes, blackboards and other school apparatus, and for the purchase of text-books and other school necessaries for the use of poor scholars of the district.

10. To vote a tax for the establishment of a school library and the maintenance thereof, or for the support of any school library already owned by said district, and for the purchase of books therefor, and such sum as they may deem necessary for the purchase of a book-case.

11. To vote a tax to supply a deficiency in any former tax arising from such tax, being in whole or in part, uncollectible.

12. To authorize the trustees to cause the school-house or school-houses, and their furniture, appendages and school apparatus to be insured by any insurance company created by or under the laws of this state.

13. To alter, repeal and modify their proceedings, from time to time, as occasion may require.

14. To vote a tax for the purchase of a book for the purpose of recording their proceedings.

15. To vote a tax to replace moneys of the district, lost or embezzled by district officers; and to pay the reasonable expenses incurred by district officers in defending suits or appeals brought against them for their official acts, or in prosecuting suits or appeals by direction of the district against other parties.

16. To vote a tax to pay whatever deficiency there may be in teachers' wages after the public 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.

17. To vote a tax to pay and satisfy of record any judgment or judgments of a competent court which may have been or shall hereafter be obtained in an action against the trustees of the district for unpaid teachers' wages against the trustees of the district, where the time to appeal from said judgment or judg. ments shall have lapsed, or there shall be no intent to appeal on the part of such district, or the said judgment or judgments is or are or shall be of the court of last resort; but if the inhabitants shall neglect or refuse to vote a tax for this purpose, or, if they vote a tax which shall prove insufficient to fully satisfy said judg ment or judgments, then the trustees are authorized and it is hereby made their duty to raise by district tax the amount of said judgment or judgments, or the deficiency which may exist in any tax voted by said inhabitants to pay said judgment or judg ments, the same as if such tax had been authorized by a vote of the inhabitants, and the trustees are hereby authorized, and it is hereby made their duty forthwith, after the expiration of thirty days from notice of any judgment or judgments having been entered against the district or the trustees thereof for unpaid teachers' wages, to call a meeting of the inhabitants of said district, who shall have power, as aforesaid, to vote a tax to pay such judgment or judgments; and in case they refuse or neglect to do

School District Meetings and Voters.

§ 15

so, the trustees are authorized, and it is hereby made their duty, unless said judgment or judgments are appealed from, to raise by district tax the amount of said judgment or judgments as hereinbefore provided.

18. In all propositions arising at said district meetings, involving the expenditure of money, or authorizing the levy of a tax or taxes, the vote thereon shall be by ballot, or ascertained by taking and recording the ayes and noes of such qualified voters attending and voting at such district meetings.

19. Whenever any district shall have contracted with the school authorities of any city or village or other school district for the education therein of the pupils residing in such common school district, the inhabitants thereof entitled to vote are authorized to provide, by tax or otherwise, for the conveyance of the pupils residing therein to the schools of such city, village or district with which such contract shall have been made, and the trustees thereof may contract for such conveyance when so authorized in accordance with such rules and regulations as they may establish. (As amended by chap. 264 of 1896, § 5.)

15. In school districts in which the number of children of school age exceeds three hundred, as shown by the last annual report of the trustees to the school commissioner, the qualified voters of any such district, at any annual meeting thereof, may by the vote of a majority of those present and voting, to be ascertained by taking and recording the ayes and noes, determine that the election of officers of said district shall be held on the Wednesday next following the day designated by law for holding the annual meeting of said district. Until such determination shall be changed, such election shall be held on the Wednesday next following the day on which such annual meeting of such district shall be held in each year, between the hours of twelve o'clock noon and four o'clock in the afternoon, at the principal schoolhouse in such district, or such other suitable place as the trustees may designate. When the place of holding such election is other than at the principal school-house, the trustees shall give notice thereof by the publication of such notice, at least, one week before the time of holding such election, in some newspaper published in the district, or by posting the same in five conspicuous places in the district. The trustees may, by resolution, extend the time of holding the election from four o'clock until sunset. The trus tees shall act as inspectors of election, and if a majority of the

trustees shall not be present at the time for opening the polls those of them in attendance may appoint any of the legal voters of the district present to act as inspectors in place of the absent trustees; and if none of the trustees shall be present at the time of opening the polls, the legal voters present may choose three of their number to act as inspectors. If any such district shall have but one trustee, the legal voters of the district present at the time of opening the polls, may choose two of their number to act with said trustee as inspectors. The district clerk shall attend at the election, and record in a book to be provided for that purpose, the name of each elector as he or she deposits his or her ballot. If the district clerk shall be absent, or shall be unable or refuse to act, the trustees or inspectors of election shall appoint some person who is a legal voter in the district to act in his place. Any clerk or acting clerk at such election who shall neglect or refuse to record the name of a person whose ballot is received by the inspectors, shall be liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars, to be sued for by the supervisor of the town. If any person offering to vote at such election shall be challenged as unqualified, by any legal voter, the chairman of the inspectors shall require the person so offering to vote to make the following declaration : " I do declare and affirm that I am and have been for the thirty days last past an actual resident of this school district, and that I am legally qualified to vote at this election." Every person making such declaration shall be permitted to vote; but if any person shall refuse to make such declaration, his or her ballot shall not be received by the inspectors. Any person who, upon being so challenged, shall willfully make a false declaration of his or her right to vote at such election, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Any person who shall vote at such election, not being duly qualified, shall, though not challenged, forfeit the sum of ten dollars, to be sued for by the supervisor of the town for the benefit of the school or schools of the district. The trustees of the district shall, at the expense of the district, provide a suitable box in which the ballots shall be deposited as they are received. Such ballots shall contain the names of the persons voted for, and shall designate the office for which each one is voted, and such ballots may be either written or printed, or partly written and partly printed. The inspectors, immediately after the close of the polls shall proceed to canvass the votes. They shall first count the ballots to deter. mine if they tally with the number of names recorded by the

District School-houses and Sites.

SS 16-17

clerk. If they exceed that number, enough ballots shall be withdrawn to make them correspond. Said inspectors shall count the votes and announce the result. The person or persons having a majority of the votes respectively for the several offices shall be elected, and the clerk shall record the result of such ballot and election as announced by the inspectors. Whenever the time for holding such election as aforesaid shall pass without such election being held in any such district, a special election shall be called by the trustees or clerk, and if no such election be called by the trustees or clerk within twenty days after such time shall have passed, the school commissioner or the superintendent of public instruction may order an inhabitant of such district to give notice of such election in the manner provided in the second section of this title; and the officials elected at such special election shall hold their respective offices only until the next annual election, and until their successors are elected and shall have qualified, as in this act provided. All disputes concerning the validity of any such election, or of any votes cast thereat, or of any of the acts of the inspectors or clerk, shall be referred to the superintendent of public instruction, whose decision in the matter shall be final. Such superintendent may, in his discretion, order a new election in any district.

The foregoing provision shall not apply to school districts in cities, nor to union free school districts whose limits correspond with those of an incorporated village, nor to any school district organized under a special act of the legislature, in which the time, manner and form of the election of district officers shall be different from that prescribed for the election of officers in common school districts, organized under the general law, nor to any of the school districts in the counties of Richmond, Suffolk, Chenango, Westchester, Warren, Erie and St. Lawrence.

ARTICLE II.

OF DISTRICT SCHOOL-HOUSES AND SITES.

16. No school-house shall be built so as to stand, in whole or in part, upon the division line of any two towns.

17. No tax voted by a district meeting for building, hiring or purchasing a school-house or an addition to a school-house exceeding the sum of five hundred dollars, shall be levied by the trus