A charter form of government wouldn’t necessarily be an improvement on what Charles County has now, an academic told the county commissioners Tuesday.

Professor Jeanne E. Bilanin, associate director of the Institute for Governmental Service and Research at the University of Maryland, declined to say what structure would be best for Charles County, but asserted that both charter and code county governments have strengths and weaknesses, and neither stands out as superior.

Examining a switch to a charter government is a stated goal of the current commissioners.

Charter and code are the two forms of “home rule” available to Maryland counties. Both home rule systems give county governments greater autonomy from the Maryland General Assembly than other counties have.

Among the differences are that charter governments have more authority over planning and zoning decisions than other counties, while code counties can impose regulatory fees and sales taxes with less oversight.

All counties, regardless of home rule status, need legislative approval to raise income or property taxes, Bilanin’s presentation stated.

Charles County has had code home rule since 2002, the most recent of six counties to adopt that structure since 1970, Bilanin’s presentation stated.

Ten counties, including largely urban jurisdictions Howard, Montgomery and Baltimore counties, have charters, while the remaining seven, including Calvert and St. Mary’s counties, do not have home rule.

Charter government tends to take the form of a county council with an independent county executive, as in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, Bilanin said.

But other structures are available, with the specifics to be drafted by a charter board, appointed by the board of commissioners. The draft charter would then be approved or rejected by voters at a referendum.

Urban counties tend to gravitate toward charter government, Bilanin said, in part because having a dedicated executive could raise the county’s profile.

“They felt they needed to have a central focal point for dealing with the legislature, that this gave them more power, that they were now sitting with a group of larger counties that have a county executive and have the same status as them,” Bilanin said. “Those kinds of considerations, if you feel don’t have the kind of representation you need or don’t have that one focus of what represents or who represents Charles County, that might be an advantage, but that’s something you really need to have a sense of internally, I think, in the county.”

Commissioner Reuben B. Collins II (D) asked what costs a shift might entail.

“It’s not the form of government that makes the differences” in costs, Bilanin said, though there would undoubtedly be costs entailed in holding a referendum and, if the charter mandated it, establishing an office and staff for a new county executive.

“All of that would involve some cost, but I think if you look at the budget of a county, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, those costs are very small relative to the size of the budget and could easily disappear within that budget,” Bilanin said.

“At the conclusion, it seems like there is no standard for government. In terms of size and geography, they’re all over the place,” Commissioner Ken Robinson (D) said.

One pattern identified by Bilanin is that no county has ever switched from code to charter government, though Caroline County made an unsuccessful attempt, where the draft charter was rejected by voters and code home rule was retained.

“I think in general, code counties have been satisfied with the authority they have and have been able to operate in what they considered to be an effective way, without changing to charter,” Bilanin said.

Code home rule does expose Charles County to potential interference from the legislature because the state constitution gives Annapolis the authority to pass laws applying to all code counties in a given region, Bilanin said.

Because Charles County is the only home rule county in Southern Maryland, the legislature could pass laws that, in effect, apply only to Charles County.

This could be averted by convincing St. Mary’s and Calvert counties to adopt code home rule themselves, she suggested, forcing the legislature to meddle with all three counties together if it chooses to interfere at all.

Collins wondered about the fate of the Charles County Sheriff’s Office under charter government, but Bilanin reassured him.

“Can a government maintain as its law enforcement agency, still maintain the sheriff’s office, for example, as our primary law enforcement entity? Does the change require that you create a police department? That is a question that has been raised on many occasions,” he asked.

Charter government would not require the county to create a separate police department, Bilanin said.

emitrano@somdnews.com