In case the board shall refuse, fail, or neglect to cause an assessment or levy to be made for the principal and interest of outstanding bonds, or improvement warrants, and for all payments due, or to become due, in the ensuing year to the United States, or to any department or agency thereof, or to the state water commission, or to any person, firm, corporation, or limited liability company, or to another irrigation district, under any contract entered into by the district, or for expenses incurred in organizing the district, then the assessment of property made for the preceding year shall be adopted and shall be the basis of assessment for the district. The board of county commissioners of each county comprising the district, by resolution, shall make such levy and assessment in the same manner and with like effect as if the same had been made by the board of directors of the district, and the expense incident thereto also shall be levied and assessed against the district. All such taxes or assessments shall be collected by and paid to the county treasurer in the county treasurer's official capacity and the county treasurer shall be responsible for the safekeeping, disbursement, and payment thereof, as herein provided.
61-09-13. Board may borrow additional funds if levy of annual assessment is insufficient for district - Limitations. If after the levy of the annual assessment for the current year, the board finds that because of some unusual or unforeseen cause funds raised through the collection of the assessment, and from other sources, will not be sufficient for the proper maintenance and operation of the district, and the irrigation works of the district, the board may borrow additional funds needed to an amount not to exceed twenty dollars per acre [.40 hectare] for the irrigable lands within the district and may pledge the credit of the district for the payment of the loan, or the board may issue bonds in anticipation of further collections. The board shall include in the levy for the ensuing year the amount required to pay the loan or to retire the bonds.
61-09-14. Borrowing in excess of ninety percent of levy prohibited - Additional levy permissible - Transfer of balance in fund. An irrigation district, on account of expenses of operation and maintenance and to pay the current expenses of the district, in any year may not borrow in excess of ninety percent of the levy of assessments for that year. In case of due and outstanding obligations of the district on account of current expenses and expenses of operation and maintenance contracted before the year in which the levy is made, the district board may make an additional levy, not to exceed twenty dollars per acre [.40 hectare], upon all irrigable lands within the district, to create a
special fund for the payment of the past-due obligations. Whenever the claims or obligations against any fund for any year are fully paid, the board may transfer any unused balance to any fund for any preceding or succeeding year.
61-09-15. Assessment made to be general tax - When due and delinquent - Tax lien to be preferred lien. All assessments made pursuant to the provisions of this chapter on real property, and assessments on leasehold estates owned by this state or any of its subdivisions, and, to the extent provided by the Act of Congress of August 11, 1916, assessments on entered or unentered public lands shall be a general tax against the real property on which assessed in like manner and to the same effect as general state and county taxes and shall be of the same order. The lien thereof shall share ratably with general tax liens in all tax proceedings and tax lien foreclosures and shall be subject to all provisions of law relating to general taxes. Such assessment shall become due and payable and delinquent at the same time as other general state and county taxes lien foreclosure and shall remain subject to all statutory provisions applying to tax lien foreclosure. In case leasehold estates only are affected by said assessments, the tax lien foreclosure notice shall state that fact. The lien for the bonds of any series shall be preferred to that of any subsequent series, and the lien for the payments due to the United States under any contract between the district and the United States, accompanying which bonds have not been deposited with the United States, shall be a lien preferred over that of any issue of bonds or any series of any issue subsequent to the date of such contract. All funds arising from assessment and levy, if any, shall be devoted to the obligations of the district payable from said funds and as to all obligations from the bond and United States contract a fund shall be so devoted in the order of priority of the creation of the obligation. No error or omission which may be made in the proceedings of the board, or of any officer of an irrigation district in referring, reporting upon, ordering or otherwise acting concerning the establishment, construction, or acquisition of irrigation works, or concerning the issuance of bonds or improvement warrants, or in making or certifying any assessment shall vitiate or in any way affect any such assessment; but if it shall appear that by reason of such error or omission substantial injury has been done to the party or parties claiming to be aggrieved, the court shall alter such assessment as may be just and the same shall then be enforced. Whenever the validity of any assessment, or the validity of any deed given pursuant to a foreclosure of tax lien for such assessment shall be drawn in question in any action in any district court in this state, and such assessment shall be held to be invalid by reason of noncompliance with the laws of this state, the court shall determine the true and just amount which the property attempted to be so assessed by said assessment should pay, to make the same uniform with other assessments for the same purpose, and the amount of such assessments as the same appears on the assessment list thereof, shall be prima facie evidence of such true and just amount, and judgment must be rendered and given therefor against the property liable for such assessment, without regard to the proceedings had for the levy thereof, and such judgment shall be a lien upon the property upon which the assessment shall have been levied, of equal force and effect as the lien of irrigation district assessments, and the lien of such judgment shall be enforced by the court in such action.
61-09-16. Payment of assessments under protest - When refunding taxes or assessments. When any person against whose property assessments as provided in this chapter have been made shall pay the same under protest as provided by the general revenue laws of this state, the board may pass upon and make orders disposing of the moneys paid under protest in the same form and manner as the boards of county commissioners are authorized to act in the case of general taxes, and such proceedings shall be had as provided in title 57, so far as such provisions apply. No taxes or assessments shall be ordered refunded unless the person complaining shall file in the office of the secretary of such district a copy of the person's tax receipt, showing the same paid under protest, together with an affidavit in writing showing one of the following reasons why such taxes or assessments should be refunded:
1. That the land upon which such taxes or assessments were levied is not within the boundaries of the district for which the lands were taxed or assessed. 2. That the said lands are exempt by law, setting forth the reason therefor. 3. Repealed by S.L. 1957, ch. 380, § 1.