Optional County Charter Law

Optional County Charter Law provides a procedure by which a county may change its form of government, putting a charter study question to the voters, establishing a study commission with its own rules of procedure and compensation, and submitting the resulting optional plan to the electorate for approval. It then supplies the operating framework for a county governed under such a plan: the enactment, recording, and publication of ordinances, resolutions, and regulations; a power of initiative and referendum exercisable by petition, with signature thresholds tied to registered voters, petition and affidavit requirements, certification, suspension of the challenged ordinance, and a referendum election with rules for ballots and conflicting measures; and, where a district-based representation system is chosen, the division of the county into districts, certification and publication of boundaries, limits on population difference between them, and readjustment after each census. The act also governs the transition itself, addressing the schedule for installing the adopted plan, adoption and effective date of an administrative code, the continuing force of existing enactments and pending proceedings, appointments and the status of classified and unclassified employees including county administration of civil service, and the fiscal year and budget process.

Editorial summary generated from the text of this act. It is not part of the statute — read the sections below for the operative language.