Missouri Constitution
Article III - Legislative Department
Section 37(a) State building bond issue authorized—interest rate—payment from income tax and other funds.
remodeling and rebuilding state buildings and properties at all or any of the penal, correctional and reformatory institutions of this state, the state training schools, state hospitals and state schools and other eleemosynary institutions of this state, and institutions of higher education of this state, and for building additions thereto and additional buildings where necessary, and for furnishing and equipping any such improvements.
Such bonds shall bear interest at a rate not exceeding three percentum (3%) per annum, payable semiannually, except that the first interest payable thereon may be paid not later than one year from the date of issuance, and maturing not later than twenty-five years from their date. Such bonds shall be issued by the State Board of Fund Commissioners in such amount, from time to time, as may be necessary to carry on the building program as determined by the General Assembly. The proceeds of the sale or sales of any bonds issued hereunder shall be paid into the state treasury and be credited to a fund to be designated the “Second State Building Fund.”
The proceeds of the sale of the bonds herein authorized shall be expended for the purposes for which the bonds are hereinabove authorized to be issued.
The bonds and the interest thereon shall be paid out of the Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund, which is hereby created. Upon the issuance of such bonds, or any portion thereof, the State Board of Fund Commis sioners shall notify the State Comptroller of the amount of money required, in the remaining portion of the fiscal year during which said bonds shall have been issued, for the payment of interest on the said bonds, and of the amount of money required for the payment of interest on the said bonds in the next succeeding fiscal year, and for the establishment and maintenance of a sinking fund to pay said bonds as they mature. Thereafter, within thirty days after the beginning of each fiscal year, the State Board of Fund Commissioners shall notify the State Comptroller of the amount of money required for the payment of interest on the said bonds in the next succeeding fiscal year and for the maintenance of the sinking fund to pay said bonds maturing in such next succeeding fiscal year.
It shall be the duty of the State Comptroller to transfer, at least monthly, the proceeds of the state income tax, after deducting therefrom the proportionate part thereof appropriated for the support of the free public schools, to the credit of the Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund until there shall have been transferred to said fund the amount so certified to him by the State Board of Fund Commissioners, as hereinabove provided.
If at any time after the issuance of any of the said bonds, it shall become apparent to the State Comptroller that the proceeds of the state income tax, as aforesaid, will not be sufficient for the payment of the principal and interest maturing and accruing on said bonds during the next succeeding fiscal year, a direct tax shall be levied upon all taxable tangible property in the state for the payment of said bonds and the interest that will accrue thereon. In such event, it shall be the duty of the State Comptroller annually, on or before the first day of July, to determine the rate of taxation necessary to be levied upon all taxable tangible property within the state to raise the amount of money needed to pay the principal of and interest on such bonds maturing and accruing in the next succeeding fiscal year, taking into consideration available funds, delinquencies and costs of collection. The State Comptroller shall annually certify the rate of taxation so determined to the county clerk of each county and to the comptroller or other officer in the city of St. Louis whose duty it shall be to make up and certify the tax books wherein are extended the ad valorem state taxes. It shall be the duty of said clerks and the said comptroller or other proper officer in the city of St. Louis to extend upon the tax books the taxes to be collected and to certify the same to the collectors of the revenue of their re spective counties and of the city of St. Louis, who shall collect (b)
such taxes at the same time and in the same manner and by the same means as are now or may hereafter be provided by law for the collection of state and county taxes, and to pay the same into the state treasury for the credit of the Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund.
If at any time the balance in said Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund should be insufficient to pay accruing interest or maturing principal of said bonds, the Board of Fund Commissioners shall direct the State Comptroller to transfer from the State Revenue Fund to said Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund the sum required for said purposes, or either of them, and said sum so transferred shall be reimbursed to the State Revenue Fund whenever there may be a balance in the Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund in excess of the amount which may then be needed to meet the accruing interest and maturing principal of the said bonds during one fiscal year next succeeding.
All funds paid into the Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund shall be and stand appropriated without legislative action to the payment of principal and interest of the said bonds, there to remain until paid out in discharge of the principal of said bonds and the interest accruing thereon, and no part of such fund shall be used for any other purpose so long as any of the principal of said bonds and the interest thereon shall be unpaid, provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall prevent the reimbursement from the said Second State Building Bond Interest and Sinking Fund of the State Revenue Fund, as hereinabove provided.
The General Assembly shall enact such laws as may be necessary to carry this amendment into effect.
(Adopted January 24, 1956)
