Rutland County Parent Child Center, Inc.
v.
City of Rutland
On
Appeal from Superior Court, Rutland Unit, Civil Division Mary
Miles Teachout, J.
John
J. Kennelly and Shannon E. Lamb of Pratt Vreeland Kennelly
Martin & White, Ltd., Rutland, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Charles A. Romeo, City Attorney, and John G. Pritchard and
Alexander M. Dean, Law Clerks (On the Brief), Rutland, for
Defendant-Appellant.
PRESENT: Reiber, C.J., Dooley, Skoglund, Robinson and Eaton,
JJ.
DOOLEY, J.
¶
1. The City of Rutland appeals a superior court decision that
two buildings owned by the Rutland County Parent Child Center
(RCPCC) are exempt from property taxation. The City argues
that neither property meets the requirements of the public
use tax exemption in 32 V.S.A. § 3802(4). We affirm.
¶
2. RCPCC is one of fifteen parent-child centers in Vermont.
In 1990, the Legislature enacted a law defining
"parent-child center" and directing the agency of
human services to provide grant funding for eligible centers.
1989, No. 269 (Adj. Sess.), § 2 (codified at 33 V.S.A.
§ 3701). Under the statutory definition, a parent-child
center is a "community-based organization established
for the purpose of providing prevention and early
intervention services such as parenting education, support,
training, referral and related services to prospective
parents and families with young children." 33 V.S.A.
§ 3701(a). The statute directs a parent-child center to
"[r]epresent a designated geographic catchment
area" and "provide leadership in the coordination
of services for families with other community service
providers." Id. § 3701(c)(4), (d)(1).
¶
3. RCPCC owns two properties in the City, both of which are
at issue in this case. In these two properties, RCPCC offers
a variety of programs dedicated to providing support services
to pregnant and parenting youth, the families of young
children, and young children themselves. Many of these
programs are administered and funded by the state, although
some participants in one of the programs pay for the services
they receive. Residents of Rutland County may contact RCPCC,
and RCPCC will determine whether they are eligible for any of
the services offered according to each program's
eligibility criteria. The programs offered include: (1)
Learning Together, a program that serves a maximum of
twenty-five parenting or pregnant persons under the age of
twenty-four who are actively seeking a high school diploma;
(2) Pregnant and Parenting Teens, which provides parenting
classes and pregnancy prevention under contract with the
Department for Children and Families' (DCF) Child
Development Division; (3) Reach Up, a program administered by
DCF's Economic Services Division that provides
case-management services, financial incentives, parenting
education and support, as well as childcare for individuals
and families transitioning from public assistance to
self-sufficiency; (4) Intensive Family Based
Services/Strengthening Families, a service providing
educational supports for families with the goal of preventing
placement in foster care; (5) Children's Integrated
Services Early Intervention/Family Support, a program funded
in part through a grant from DCF's Child Development
Division that provides early intervention services, including
speech, physical, occupational, and mental-health therapy for
children under the age of three with developmental or
social-emotional delays; (6) Building Bright Futures Direct
Services Program, a service available to all families in
Rutland County with children ages birth to six, which
provides community education, support for new parents, and
coordination services for home and center-based early
education providers, including playgroups and welcome baby
bags for babies born at Rutland Regional Medical Center; (7)
Parenting On Our Own in a Safe Environment (POISE), a program
that provides off-site shelter for homeless pregnant and
parenting persons ages sixteen to twenty-two and provided
under contract with the Washington County Youth Services
Bureau Boys & Girls Club, which is overseen by DCF; and
(8) Early Education, a program available to all families in
Rutland County with children aged six weeks to six years old
that assesses each child's educational needs and prepares
children to succeed in school. Some of these programs have
very specific targeted recipient groups. For example, (1) to
be eligible for Intensive Family Based Services/Strengthening
Families, a family must have an open case with DCF, a
mental-health or substance-abuse issue, a child under the age
of three, and recent or current involvement with the
Department of Corrections; (2) for Reach Up, RCPCC's
contract with DCF requires it to give priority to parents
under the age of eighteen when selecting participants; and
(3) for Early Education, RCPCC's contract with the state
requires that at least twenty-five percent of enrolled
children receive a state subsidy. In each case, this
targeting is required by the state agency that provides
funding.
¶
4. In late 2013, RCPCC sought a property tax exemption for
the two properties that house the programs listed above. In
early 2014, the City's tax assessor determined that
neither property qualified for the exemption. After
exhausting its administrative remedies, RCPCC filed for
declaratory judgment in superior court pursuant to Vermont
Rule of Civil Procedure 75, initially arguing that the
properties qualified for a property tax exemption under
either the public use or public school statutory exceptions.
The superior court determined on summary judgment that
RCPCC's properties did not qualify for the public school
tax exemption but, after a bench trial, decided that
RCPCC's use of the properties in question met the
three-prong public use exemption test outlined by this Court
in American Museum of Fly Fishing, Inc. v. Town of
Manchester, 151 Vt. 103, 110, 557 A.2d 900, 904 (1989),
and that, accordingly, both properties were exempt from
property tax assessment. The City appeals this decision.
¶
5. In reaching our decision, we review the superior
court's factual findings in the light most favorable to
the party prevailing below and will set those findings aside
only upon a showing of clear error. Our Lady of Ephesus
House of Prayer, Inc. v. Town of Jamaica, 2005 VT 16,
¶ 10, 178 Vt. 35, 869 A.2d 145. Our review of the
court's conclusions of law is plenary and
nondeferential-we will affirm the court's conclusions if
they agree with the applicable law and are supported by the
court's factual findings. Sigler Found. v. Town of
Norwich, 174 Vt. 129, 130, 807 A.2d 442, 443-44 (2002).
¶
6. RCPCC claims a property tax exemption under 32 V.S.A.
§ 3802(4), which exempts "[r]eal and personal
estate granted, sequestered or used for public, pious or
charitable uses." The statute does not define public
use, but we have held that a property qualifies for a public
use exemption only where it satisfies three criteria:
(1) the property must be dedicated unconditionally to public
use; (2) the primary use must directly benefit an indefinite
class of persons who are part of the public, and must also
confer a benefit on society as a result of the benefit
conferred on the persons directly served; and (3) the
property must be owned and operated on a not-for-profit
basis.
Am. Museum of Fly Fishing, Inc., 151 Vt. at 110, 557
A.2d at 904. The party claiming an exemption bears the burden
of showing eligibility for the claimed exemption, and we
construe exemptions strictly against the party claiming the
exemption. Vt. Studio Ctr., Inc. v. Town of Johnson,
2010 VT 59, ¶ 7, 188 Vt. 223, 5 A.3d 904.
¶
7. The parties agree that RCPCC's property meets the
first and third elements of the American Museum of Fly
Fishing test. While these elements are not in issue, it
is helpful to our analysis of the second element to review
why RCPCC meets the first element. The superior court
concluded that RCPCC satisfied American Museum of Fly
Fishing's first element because the properties at
issue are each used for "government-funded social
programs" conferring a "direct and immediate,
rather than remote or incidental, benefit upon the
public." The court also found that RCPCC "has used
its properties in Rutland for the exclusive purpose of its
mission and purposes since the dates of purchase."
¶
8. We add that benefit to the public is addressed and
acknowledged within the Legislature's statutory
recognition of parent-child centers. See 33 V.S.A. §
3701. In recognizing the ...