Executive Powers
Under a board's executive powers, the board controls county departments. Generally this is done under the aegis of a chief administrative officer or county executive. The power of the CAO or county executive to act independently depends on the composition of the board. Generally, like most city managers, the CAO or county executive has authority over the day to day operations of the county's departments. Many boards independently appoint department heads, while other boards may delegate that authority to the CAO or chief executive. Some department heads, like the sheriff or district attorney, may be elected separately by the electorate; however, the board still exerts some power over these departments' budgets.
When department heads are directly elected and hence not responsible to the board of supervisors, this can create tension. Typical examples include the sheriff's decision to implement arrest procedures which a court later declares to be unnecessarily brutal or the district attorney's decision to start charging every conceivable crime in sight. Either way, the board of supervisors will find itself having to pay out judgments to the sheriff's hapless victims, or expanding the jail to accommodate all the criminals prosecuted by the district attorney.
Despite the presence of a CAO or chief executive, it is not uncommon for an individual supervisor to become involved in the affairs of individual departments, like setting priorities for projects in one's district or independently requesting investigations of problems in a department. In some counties, the county executive is elected.
In the City and County of San Francisco, which, as the legal name indicates, has a consolidated city-county government, the Board of Supervisors does double duty as a county board of control and a city council, while the mayor, likewise, is simultaneously city head of state and county executive. Or to put in cross-comparative terms, San Francisco is the only city in California with a county Board of Supervisors instead of a city council; and it is the only county in California with a mayor instead of a county executive.
Read more about this topic: Board Of Supervisors
Famous quotes containing the words executive and/or powers:
“When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)