Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion ( 1953 )

. 2 .
, .
E GENE
0 EXAS
October 8, 1953
Honorable Tom Sealy Opinion No. S- 103
Chairman, Board of Regents
University of Texas Xe: Interpretation of appropriation
Box 670 for Post-Graduate School of
Midland, Texas Medicine of the University of
Texas, contained in Section 1 of
Article V of Chapter 81, Acts
Dear Mr. Sealy: of the 53rd Legislature, 1953.
you have requested our opinion as to whether the Board
of Regents of the University of Texas has correctly interpreted
the appropriation for the Post-Graduate School of Medicine of the
University of Texas, contained in Section 1 of Article V of Chapter
81, Acts of the 53rd Legislature, 1953, page 127, at page 3~13, to mean
that expenditures from the $50,000 appropriated for the biennium be-
ginning September 1, 1953, “need not be replaced by income received
from tuition fees or otherwise.”
,A “revolving fund” has been defined as “a brief expres-
sion of recent coinage which usually refers to a renewable credit
over a defined period. In simple parlance, it relates usually to a sit-
uation where a banker or merchant extends credit for a certain a-
mount which can be paid off from time to time, and then credit is again
given not to exceed the same amount. It may also mean a fund which
when reduced is replenished by new funds from specified sources.R
United States v. Butterworth-Judson Corporation, 297 F. 971 (C.CA.
2d 1924, reversed 267 U.S. 387).
In Webster’s International Dictionary, 2nd Edition, the
term “revolving fund” is defined as ‘A contingent fund created by the
government from which loans may be made for some specific period
and purpose, as for the purchase of wheat, or to meet the deficiencies
of the railroads; -- so called because the fund ‘revolves’, or completes
in the course of time the circuit between loans and repayments.”
Hon. Tom Scaly, page 2 (S-103)
Unless the Legislature contemplated replenishment
of the fund appropriated, there would have beenno reason for its
use of the phrase “revolving fund”. As stated by the Court in
G. C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Blum Independent School District, 143
S.W. 353 (Tex. Civ. App. 1912 Error Ref.), “every word is pre-
sumed to have been intentionally used for the purpose of making
clear the legislative intent.” And, “as a general rule, in con-
struing statutes words are to be given their usual and or’dinary
meaning unless it clearly appears that a different meaning was
intended.” Fletcher v. Bordelon, 56 S.W.2d 313 (Tex. Civ. App.
1933 Error Ref.).
In addition to so designating the “revolving fund,” the
Legislature further provided in the above mentioned Section that,
“The revolving fund established by the above item shall be reim-
bursed out of tuition and other fees collected from physicians and
other persons enrolling in post-graduate course’s offered or spon-
sored by the Post-Graduate School of Medicine.” The ‘intentions”
of the Legislature seems evident.
It is our opinion that any portion of the $50,600 ex-
pended should be reimbursed from “tuition and other fees c&L
lected”, that only such portion of the $50,,000 should ‘be expe,nd’-
ed as can reasonably be expected to be reimbur’sed from”such
tuition and other fees, and that such tuition and other fees col-
lected should be deposited to such revolving’ fund until all ex-
penditures from the $50,000 have been reimbursed. ’
SUMMARY
Any expenditures from the $50,000 revolving
fund appropriated to the Post-Graduate School’ of
Medicine of the University of Texas, by Section 1
of Article V of Chapter 81, Acts of the 53rd Leg-
islature, 1953, should be reimbursed from tuition
and other fees collected, and only such portion
should be expended as can reasonably be expected
to be reimbursed from such tuition and other fees
collected, which should be deposited to such revolv’
Hon. Tom Scaly, page 3 (S-103)
,ing fund until all expenditures therefrom have
been reimbursed.
APPROVED: Yours very truly,
Willis E. Gresham JOHN BEN SHEPPERD
Public Affairs Division Attorney General
Burnell Waldrep
Reviewer
Robert S. Trotti
First Assistant Assistant
John Ben Shepperd
Attorney General
JA:da