Board of Supervisors - Legislative Powers

Legislative Powers

Under a board's legislative powers, the supervisors have the ability to pass and repeal laws, generally called ordinances, as in cities. Depending on the state, and the subject matter of the law, these laws may apply to the entire county or only to unincorporated areas not under jurisdiction by a city. The board is also responsible for approving the county budget. County governments frequently collect state taxes and, in some states, they or their citizens are allowed to set certain tax rates. However, because they are ultimately organs of state law and policy, it is unusual for counties to have power to establish their own taxes—they, or their citizens, merely adjust the rates of tax measures created by the state government. Cities, by contrast, typically have power to create their own taxes. Detroit, for example, has its own income tax, and New York has its own sales tax, on top of the New York State sales tax.

In some states, including Michigan, and in some New York counties until recently, county governing boards were composed of township (Michigan) or town (New York) "supervisors". These were the chief elected officials of each civil township (called "town" in New York) in a county—hence, the term "Board of Supervisors", because they were originally composed of the various town/township supervisors from across the county. This system gave every township one vote on the county board regardless of its population, resulting in (usually rural) townships with a few people having influence in decision-making that was disproportionate to their populations. A township with fewer than 1,000 people had the same clout as a city with more than 1,000,000 people.

Both Michigan and New York changed how they elected county boards by dividing counties into single member districts, drawn so that each district has more or less the same sized population. In Michigan, the new board model was implemented in 1968. The name "Board of Supervisors" was changed to "Board of Commissioners" in 1970, however, to avoid confusion with township government (where the term "Supervisor" was still used). In New York, the new boards were called "county legislatures" (and their members, "county legislators"), but not every county has adopted this system. Those which retained the old boards of supervisors after the 1960s assigned each member a proportional vote based on the population represented.