Original action under MCL 141.438(7) of the Uniform Budgeting & Accounting Act (UBAA); Jurisdiction; MCL 141.438; Whether previous decisions as to budget disputes between the parties were dispositive; Collateral estoppel; Monat v State Farm Ins Co; Declaratory relief; Binding precedent; MCR 7.215(C)(2); Stare decisis; A county prosecutor’s appointment & tenure authority; MCL 49.31; MCL 49.35; Whether the reclassification of a staff position is valid; Mootness; Mandamus relief

The court held that: (1) plaintiff-county prosecutor’s claims regarding a staff position were meritless because the county board of commissioners conditioned this appropriation on the reclassification of the position, which did not occur, and (2) defendant-county executive improperly impounded funds for plaintiff to use for outside legal counsel. Thus, it granted defendant summary disposition as to the staff position claim, granted plaintiff summary disposition, in part, as to the outside legal counsel claim, and issued a writ of mandamus directing defendant to disburse the funds and directing the parties to work together to facilitate the appropriate contracts. Plaintiff claimed defendant wrongfully impounded funds for a staff position and for outside legal services. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded it had jurisdiction. It found the claims were properly before it under the UBAA because regardless of the merits of plaintiff’s allegations, they “involve actions relating to the enforcement of a general appropriations act.” It next found that neither of the decisions as to previous budget disputes between the parties were dispositive. Collateral estoppel did not apply, and questions remained “as to whether the funds have actually been appropriated for the prosecutor’s office given purported conditions on the appropriations and whether those conditions have been met. Neither” of the previous decisions addressed these issues. Likewise, plaintiff’s “assertion that the declaratory relief ordered in” the first decision “controls the outcome of this case similarly lacks merit.” Turning to the merits, the court found plaintiff was not entitled to funds for the staff position. Nowhere in MCL 49.31 “is a prosecutor given the authority to unilaterally ‘reclassify’ an existing position, and” plaintiff’s attempts to do so were ineffective to establish the position at issue. Moreover, a “budgetary enforcement action under the UBAA is not the proper vehicle for” plaintiff’s claim that a reclassification decision was invalid. However, plaintiff was entitled to relief as to the appropriation of funds for outside legal services as defendant “cannot impound these funds ‘absent a showing of economic efficiencies.’” Defendant made “no such showing, and his claim that he can impound the funds pending a decision” by the Supreme Court in the most recent case arising from the parties’ budget dispute lacked merit. The court also disagreed that the issue was moot. Plaintiff abandoned his request for declaratory relief.