Education

OPINION 46-108 September 10, 1946 (OPINION) EDUCATION RE: Department of Public Instruction - Printing - Publication - North Dakota Teacher This is in reply to your letter of September 5 addressed to the Attorney General. You state that a request has been made to the Department for payment at the regular publishing rate of $45.00 per page, less 10%, for a monthly news bulletin in The North Dakota Teacher, the official magazine for the North Dakota Education Association. Undoubtedly it will be of interest to the teachers and others interested to have news items and pertinent information from your department printed in The North Dakota Teacher. However, the item of expense connected with such printing was hardly contemplated by the Legislature in making the appropriation for the Department of Public Instruction, nor can it be said that the cost of printing such information is a legitimate expense of your department. In your appropriation for the biennial is an item of $16,000 for postage, supplies, printing, furniture and fixtures. The printing referred to therein, of course, is such printing as necessarily is required in the proper maintenance of your department, but it would not include the expense incurred in printing news items in the North Dakota Teacher. If we should hold that this would be a legitimate expense of your department, by the same token we would have to hold that it would be equally legitimate to publish these items, for instance, in the Bismarck Tribune or the Fargo Forum and to pay the cost of same. It is the opinion of this office, therefore, that payment of cost of printing news items is not a legitimate expense of your department and may not be charged against any item in your appropriation. NELS G. JOHNSON Attorney General