Does a Texas county have to pay for office space for the county surveyor outside the courthouse?

Texas AG Opinion JM-1111: Must a County Pay for the County Surveyor's Office Outside the Courthouse?

Plain-English summary

The Coryell County Attorney asked a question that turned into a small detective story about Texas statutes. Does a county have to pay for office space for the county surveyor when there is no room at the courthouse? The answer used to be governed by a 1941 Attorney General opinion (O-3229), which held that the choice was entirely up to the commissioners court. That opinion rested on a conflict between two old statutes: article 5283, which said a county must pay reasonable rent for a surveyor's office elsewhere at the county seat when the courthouse had no space, and a later article 3899b, which gave commissioners courts full discretion over whether to provide such space. The 1941 opinion concluded that the later statute impliedly repealed the earlier one, leaving the county with discretion.

Since then, the legislature reshuffled the deck through its ongoing, supposedly non-substantive, recodification of the statutes. In 1977 it repealed article 5283 (the mandatory-rent provision) but reenacted its substance as section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code, which spells out that rent for an outside office "shall be paid" on a showing that the rent is reasonable, the office is necessary, and no office is available at the courthouse. Then in 1987 it repealed article 3899b (the discretion provision) when it adopted the Local Government Code, without carrying it forward anywhere.

That left section 23.016 as the only statute on the books dealing with the surveyor's office space, and it is unambiguous. The Attorney General worked through the recodification tangle, acknowledging that codifications are meant not to change the law and that courts can look at legislative history even for a clear statute. But it concluded a court would not treat a provision that was expressly repealed and never carried forward (the old discretion rule) as still the law, because then counties would have to consult a repealed statute to know their duties. The bottom line: Attorney General Opinion O-3229 is no longer a correct statement of the law, and a county must follow section 23.016. The commissioners court does not have unlimited discretion. But because the statute requires a showing that an outside office is necessary, a court that finds no such necessity may still decline to pay.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1989. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

This opinion is itself a lesson in how much statutory numbering shifts over time: the surveyor office-space rule moved from article 5283 to Natural Resources Code section 23.016. It may have moved or been amended again since 1989. Anyone dealing with a present-day county surveyor office-space question should check the current Natural Resources Code and Local Government Code rather than relying on the section numbers here.

Who this opinion affected (as of 1989)

Commissioners courts: The opinion removed the "unlimited discretion" they thought they had. They now had to apply the three-part standard in section 23.016 (reasonable rent, necessary office, no courthouse space) rather than simply deciding whether to provide an office at all.

County surveyors: The opinion gave surveyors a concrete standard to point to. If they could show the rent was reasonable, an outside office was necessary, and none was available at the courthouse, the county had to pay.

County attorneys and auditors: The opinion clarified which statute controlled after two rounds of recodification, so counties would look to section 23.016 and not to the long-repealed articles 5283 and 3899b.

Common questions

Does a county have to pay for the surveyor's office if there is no room at the courthouse?
Yes, if the statutory conditions are met. Under Natural Resources Code section 23.016, the county must pay rent for an outside office on a showing that the rent is reasonable, the office is necessary, and no office is available at the courthouse.

Doesn't the commissioners court have discretion over this?
Not unlimited discretion. The Attorney General concluded that the old opinion granting unlimited discretion (O-3229) is no longer correct. The court must apply the section 23.016 standard, though it may refuse to pay if the outside office is not shown to be necessary.

Which statute controls now?
Section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code is the only statute on the subject. The former articles 5283 and 3899b were both repealed during recodification, and article 3899b (the discretion rule) was not carried forward.

Background and statutory framework

Attorney General Opinion O-3229 (1941) had reconciled two conflicting statutes. Former article 5283, V.T.C.S. (originally the Law of Aug. 18, 1876, ch. 114), required the commissioners court to pay reasonable rent for a surveyor's office at the county seat when the courthouse had no available office. Former article 3899b, V.T.C.S. (Acts 1929, 41st Leg., ch. 207, at 448), left it to the commissioners court's discretion whether to provide office space. O-3229 concluded that the later article 3899b impliedly repealed article 5283, so the court had discretion. See also Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 44; Local Gov't Code § 291.001 (both providing that the county surveyor "shall have an office at the county seat").

Both statutes were then reworked through the ongoing statutory revision program (Gov't Code § 323.007), which is meant to be non-substantive and not to alter a statute's "sense, meaning, or effect." In 1977 the legislature adopted the Natural Resources Code (Acts 1977, 65th Leg., ch. 871), repealing article 5283 and reenacting it, in part, as section 23.016. That section provides that the surveyor's office shall be in the courthouse or a suitable building at the county seat, and that rent for an office outside the courthouse shall be paid by the commissioners court on a showing that the rent is reasonable, the office is necessary, and an office is not available at the courthouse. The reenactment alone would not have changed O-3229's holding, because the original enactment dates, not the recodification dates, determine which of two conflicting statutes prevails. Alexander Ranch, Inc. v. Central Appraisal District of Erath County, 733 S.W.2d 303, 308 (Tex. App. - Eastland 1987, writ ref'd n.r.e.), cert. denied, 108 S.Ct. 2005 (1988); accord State v. Taplin, 247 A.2d 919 (Me. 1968).

The complication came in 1987, when the legislature expressly repealed article 3899b (the discretion provision) in adopting the Local Government Code (Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 149), without carrying it forward. That left section 23.016 as the only statute addressing the surveyor's office space. Although courts may consider legislative history even for an unambiguous statute (Gov't Code § 311.023; Bryant v. Metropolitan Transit Authority, 722 S.W.2d 738, 740 (Tex. App. - Houston [14th Dist.] 1986, no writ)), and although some courts have declined to give effect to a repealed provision simply because it was carried into a later codification (compare Ex parte Olden, 199 P.2d 228 (Okla. Crim. App. 1948), with Atchley v. Board of Barber Examiners, 257 P.2d 302 (Okla. 1953)), the opinion concluded a court would not treat a provision that was expressly repealed and never reenacted as still the law. As Carbide International, Ltd. v. State, 695 S.W.2d 653, 656 n.3 (Tex. App. - Austin 1985, no writ), explained, an adopted code becomes the statutory law of the state on the subjects it covers, so that anyone subject to it may look to the code alone; see also American Indemnity Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1019, 1025 (Tex. 1922). The opinion also noted the rule that repeal of a repealing statute does not revive the original (Gov't Code §§ 311.030, 312.007), but reasoned that rule need not apply where the original statute had only been impliedly repealed and no court ever confirmed the implied repeal.

The opinion therefore concluded that O-3229 no longer stated the law and that a county must apply section 23.016. Because the Coryell County Commissioners Court had relied both on supposed unlimited discretion and on a determination that the outside space was not necessary, the opinion added that while the discretion rationale was no longer valid, the court could still refuse to pay if there was no showing that the outside office was necessary.

Citations

Statutory and constitutional authorities:

• Natural Resources Code § 23.016 (county surveyor office location; conditions for paying outside rent: reasonable rent, necessary office, no courthouse space)
• V.T.C.S. art. 5283 (former mandatory-rent provision, repealed and reenacted as Nat. Res. Code § 23.016); V.T.C.S. art. 3899b (former discretion provision, repealed by the Local Government Code)
• Government Code § 323.007 (non-substantive statutory revision program); § 311.023 (use of legislative history); §§ 311.030, 312.007 (repeal of a repealing statute does not revive the original)
• Texas Constitution art. XVI, § 44; Local Government Code § 291.001 (county surveyor shall have an office at the county seat)

Cases:

• Alexander Ranch, Inc. v. Central Appraisal District of Erath County, 733 S.W.2d 303 (Tex. App. - Eastland 1987, writ ref'd n.r.e.), cert. denied, 108 S.Ct. 2005 (1988); State v. Taplin, 247 A.2d 919 (Me. 1968) (enactment dates control among conflicting statutes)
• Bryant v. Metropolitan Transit Authority, 722 S.W.2d 738 (Tex. App. - Houston [14th Dist.] 1986, no writ) (legislative history of a recodified statute)
• Ex parte Olden, 199 P.2d 228 (Okla. Crim. App. 1948); Atchley v. Board of Barber Examiners, 257 P.2d 302 (Okla. 1953) (effect of carrying a repealed provision into a code)
• Carbide International, Ltd. v. State, 695 S.W.2d 653 (Tex. App. - Austin 1985, no writ); American Indemnity Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1019 (Tex. 1922) (an adopted code is the statutory law on its subjects)

Attorney General opinions referenced:

• O-3229 (1941) (no longer correct); O-5685 (1943)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/jim-mattox/jm-1111
• Original PDF: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1989/jm1111.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain, the linked PDF is authoritative.

October 26, 1989

Honorable Edwin E. Powell, Jr.
Coryell County Attorney
P.O. Box 796
113 South 7th
Gatesville, Texas 76528

Opinion No. JM-1111

Re: Obligation of a commissioners court to rent space outside the courthouse for the county surveyor (RQ-1720)

Dear Mr. Powell:

You ask about a county's obligation to pay for office space for the county surveyor. Specifically, you ask whether a county must pay for office space for the county surveyor outside the county courthouse. Your question requires us to consider the continuing validity of Attorney General Opinion O-3229 (1941), which held that it is entirely within the discretion of the commissioners court to determine whether the county will provide office space for the county surveyor. See also Attorney General Opinion O-5685 (1943) (dealing with a county's responsibility to provide stationery for county surveyor).

Attorney General Opinion O-3229 (1941) considered the effect of two conflicting statutes. One statute, which was codified as article 5283, V.T.C.S., provided that a county must provide office space for the county surveyor under certain circumstances:

A county surveyor shall be elected in each county at each general election for a term of two years. He shall reside in the county and keep his office at the courthouse or some suitable building at the county seat, the rent therefor to be paid by the commissioners' court on satisfactory showing that the rent is reasonable, the office necessary and that there is no available office at the courthouse.

V.T.C.S. art. 5283 (Vernon 1926); see also Law of Aug. 18, 1876, ch. 114, 1876 Tex. Gen. Laws 196; 8 H. Gammel, Laws of Texas 1032 (1876) (original enactment). A later enacted statute, which was codified as article 3899b, V.T.C.S., left it entirely to the discretion of commissioners courts to determine whether the county would provide office space to the county surveyor. Acts 1929, 41st Leg., ch. 207, at 448. In Attorney General Opinion O-3229 this office concluded that the later enacted statute, article 3899b, had impliedly repealed article 5283 and therefore that the county commissioners court had discretion to determine whether to provide office space to the county surveyor. See also Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 44; Local Gov't Code § 291.001 (both providing that the county surveyor "shall have an office at the county seat").

Both of the statutes considered in Attorney General Opinion O-3229 have been affected by the ongoing statutory revision process provided for in section 323.007 of the Government Code, which directs the legislative council to plan and execute a program of nonsubstantive recodification. See generally Collins, Continuing Statutory Revision: Where Did the Civil Practices and Remedies Code Come From?, 50 Tex. B.J. 134 (1987). The recodification program is not intended to alter the "sense, meaning, or effect" of a statute. Gov't Code § 323.007. Nonetheless, the process has resulted in the express repeal and reenactment of former article 5283, which this office had held to be impliedly repealed, and the express repeal, without reenactment, of former article 3899b. Those changes call into question the continuing validity of Attorney General Opinion O-3229.

In 1977 the legislature adopted the Natural Resources Code. Acts 1977, 65th Leg., ch. 871, at 2345. In enacting the code, the legislature repealed article 5283, the provision the attorney general had held to be impliedly repealed, and reenacted it, in part, as section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code. Id. at 2368. That section reads as follows:

(a) The county surveyor's office shall be located in the courthouse or in a suitable building at the county seat.

(b) Rent for an office outside the courthouse shall be paid by the commissioners court on showing that:

(1) the rent is reasonable;

(2) the office is necessary; and

(3) an office is not available at the courthouse.

A foreword to the proposed Natural Resources Code states that the drafting involved eliminating impliedly repealed provisions, but does not explain how the legislative council determined whether a provision had been impliedly repealed.[Footnote 1] Johnson, Foreword To Proposed Code: Revisor's Report, November, 1976, Nat. Res. Code, at IX (1978). In any case, despite their intention to eliminate impliedly repealed provisions, the drafters did not eliminate former article 5283.

By itself, the reenactment of former article 5283 would not affect the holding of Attorney General Opinion O-3229. The enactment dates of specific statutes, rather than the dates on which they were reenacted and codified as part of the program of nonsubstantive recodification, determine which of two conflicting statutes prevails. Alexander Ranch, Inc. v. Central Appraisal District of Erath County, 733 S.W.2d 303, 308 (Tex. App. - Eastland 1987, writ ref'd n.r.e.), cert. denied, 108 S.Ct. 2005 (1988); accord State v. Taplin, 247 A.2d 919 (Me. 1968).

The legislature complicated matters, however, by expressly repealing article 3899b when it adopted the Local Government Code in 1987.[Footnote 2] Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 149, at 707. The repeal of article 3899b by the enactment of the Local Government Code raises the question of whether the provisions of former article 5283, now codified as section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code, are again effective even though both recodifications were intended to be nonsubstantive.

Section 23.016 is now the only statute -- either in the codes or in the revised statutes -- dealing with a county's obligation to provide office space for the county surveyor, and it is unambiguous on its face. Current rules of statutory construction do allow courts to consider the legislative history of even an unambiguous statute. Gov't Code § 311.023. In Bryant v. Metropolitan Transit Authority, 722 S.W.2d 738, 740 (Tex. App. - Houston [14th Dist.] 1986, no writ), the court held that a court may inquire into the intent of a recodified statute that is clear on its face if the legislature has stated that the recodification is not intended to change the law and the recodification does in fact make a substantive change. Compare Ex parte Olden, 199 P.2d 228 (Okla. Crim. App. 1948) (inclusion of 1913 statute impliedly repealed by 1915 statute in 1941 codification does not validate 1913 law), with Atchley v. Board of Barber Examiners, 257 P.2d 302 (Okla. 1953) (code is law even though it may contain sections theretofore repealed).

We do not think, however, that a court would consider legislative history to be so significant that it would hold[Footnote 3] that a provision that has not been carried forward in any form is still the law. In Carbide International, Ltd. v. State, 695 S.W.2d 653 (Tex. App. - Austin 1985, no writ), the court wrote:

The codification process is a part of the Legislature's larger power to revise laws. . . . The purpose of the process is not to change the substantive law but to supply a convenience by rearrangement of separate statutes relating to the same subject, so as to achieve a complete and uniform system of statutory law dealing with the subject. Tex. Natural Resources Code Ann. § 1.001. When adopted by the Legislature in a constitutional manner, the resulting Code as a whole constitutes a law in and of itself, and not a mere compilation of previous statutes, save in certain respects not material here. The Code becomes the statutory law of the State respecting the subjects to which it relates, superseding previous statutes omitted therefrom or revealed thereby, so that anyone subject to its provisions may look to the Code alone with safety and confidence, and without resorting to the previous statutes except to explain contradictions and ambiguities. (Emphasis added.)

Id. at 656 n.3; see also American Indemnity Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1019, 1025 (Tex. 1922).

We think that a court, if faced with the question you present, would hold that, whatever happened in the recodification process, section 23.016 now governs the issue of a county's responsibility to pay for office space for the county surveyor. Otherwise, counties would have to look to an expressly repealed statute in order to determine their responsibilities in regard to office space for the county surveyor. We conclude, therefore, that Attorney General Opinion O-3229 is no longer a correct statement of the law and that a county must follow the provisions of section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code in determining whether it must pay for office space outside the county courthouse for the county surveyor.

You state in your brief that the decision of the Coryell County Commissioners Court not to pay for office space outside the county courthouse for the county surveyor was based on both the county's unlimited discretion to determine whether to provide office space for the county surveyor, as well as a determination that the space was not necessary. Because Attorney General Opinion O-3229 is no longer a correct statement of the law, the commissioners court did not have unlimited discretion in regard to the provision of office space for the county surveyor. If, however, there was no showing that the office space outside the courthouse was necessary, the commissioners court did have authority, under section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code, to refuse to pay for office space for the county surveyor.

SUMMARY

A county must follow the standards set in section 23.016 of the Natural Resources Code in determining whether to pay for office space outside the county courthouse for the county surveyor.

Very truly yours,

JIM MATTOX
Attorney General of Texas

MARY KELLER
First Assistant Attorney General

LOU MCCREARY
Executive Assistant Attorney General

JUDGE ZOLLIE STEAKLEY
Special Assistant Attorney General

RICK GILPIN
Chairman, Opinion Committee

Prepared by Sarah Woelk
Assistant Attorney General

Footnote 1: The revisor's note to section 1.002 of the code offers insight into the difficulty in determining whether a particular provision had been impliedly repealed: "With the adoption of the Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act, a number of state laws relating to state agency procedure were impliedly repealed. In cases in which statutes assigned to this code for revision were obviously repealed by that Act, corrections have been made. However, the absence of court interpretations of the APA and the possibility that many laws assigned to this code may require court consideration before a determination can be made as to whether in fact they were repealed by the APA, those laws have been revised and included in this code. [Discussion of provision insuring that APA provisions would prevail over provisions reenacted in code.]" Nat. Res. Code § 1.002 revisor's note (1978).

Footnote 2: The revisor's note at the end of chapter 152 of the Local Government Code lists a number of provisions, including article 3899b, that were repealed as part of the enactment of the Local Government Code. The note states that those provisions were repealed because they are ineffective or obsolete.

Footnote 3: The Texas legislature has provided that the repeal of a repealing statute does not revive the statute originally repealed. Gov't Code §§ 311.030 (applicable to codes), 312.007 (applicable to civil statutes). This rule was clearly intended to prevent revival of a statute by the repeal of a statute expressly repealing the original statute. We do not think the rule necessarily applies, however, when the original statute was merely impliedly repealed -- particularly when no court ever determined that the original statute had in fact been impliedly repealed.