A county commission (or a board of county commissioners) is a group of elected officials (county commissioners) collectively charged with administering the county government in some states of the United States. A county usually has three to five members of the county commission.[1] In some counties within Georgia a sole commissioner holds the authority of the commission.
In parts of the United States, alternative terms such as county board of supervisors or county council may be used in lieu of, but generally synonymous to, a county commission. However, in some jurisdictions there may be distinct differences between a county commission and other similarly titled bodies. For example, a county council may differ from a county commission by containing more members or by having a council-manager form of government. In Indiana, every county, except Marion County which is consolidated with the city of Indianapolis, has both a county commission and a county council, with the county commission having administrative authority and the county council being responsible for fiscal matters.[2]
Each commission acts as the executive of the local government, levying local taxes, administering county governmental services such as correctional institutions, courts, public health oversight, property registration, building code enforcement, and public works (e.g. road maintenance). The system has been supplanted in large part, as disparate sparsely-settled regions become urbanized and establish tighter local governmental control, usually in municipalities, though in many of the more rural states, the county commission retains more control, and even in some urbanized areas, may be responsible for significant government services.
Various counties nationwide have explored expanding from three members to five.[3][4][5]
History
William Penn, colonial founder of Pennsylvania originated the system of county commissions in the United States.
On February 28, 1681, King Charles II of England granted a charter for a proprietary colony[6] to William Penn to repay a debt of £16,000[7] (around £2,100,000 in 2008 currency, adjusting for retail inflation)[8] owed to William's father, Admiral William Penn. This was one of the largest land grants to one individual ever made in history.[9] Penn established a local colonial government with two innovations that were copied by other colonies in the British America: the county commission, and freedom of religious conviction.[9]
New Jersey previously referred to county commissioners as freeholders, but its practice ended in 2021.[10][11]
↑ Charter for the Province of Pennsylvania-1681. This charter, granted by Charles II (England) to William Penn, constituted him and his heirs as proprietors of the province, which, in honor of his father, Admiral William Penn, (whose cash advances and services were thus requited) was called Pennsylvania. To perfect his title, William Penn purchased, on 1682-08-24, a quit-claim from the Duke of York to the lands west of the Delaware River embraced in his patent of 1664
Philadelphia County is the most populous of the 67 counties of Pennsylvania and the 24th-most populous county in the nation. As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 1,603,797. Its county seat is Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city. The county is part of the Southeast Pennsylvania region of the state.
The Middle Colonies were a subset of the Thirteen Colonies in British America, located between the New England Colonies and the Southern Colonies. Along with the Chesapeake Colonies, this area now roughly makes up the Mid-Atlantic states.
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn, who received the land through a grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania was derived from "Penn's Woods", referring to William Penn's father Admiral Sir William Penn.
The colonial colleges are nine institutions of higher education chartered in the Thirteen Colonies before the founding of the United States of America during the American Revolution. These nine have long been considered together, notably since the survey of their origins in the 1907 The Cambridge History of English and American Literature.
The Walking Purchase, also known as the Walking Treaty, was a 1737 agreement between the family of William Penn, the original proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania, and the Lenape native Indians. In the purchase, the Penn family and proprietors claimed that a 1686 treaty with the Lenape ceded an area of 1,200,000 acres (4,860 km2) in present-day Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania in colonial Pennsylvania, which included a western land boundary extending as far west as a man could walk in a day and a half, which led to its name.
Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Louisiana uses the term parish and Alaska uses the term borough for what the U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
In New Jersey, a Board of County Commissioners is the elected county-wide government board in each of the state's 21 counties. In the five counties that have an elected county executive, the board of county commissioners serves as the county legislature. In the remaining counties, the board of county commissioners exercises both executive and legislative functions, often with an appointed county administrator or manager overseeing the day-to-day operations of county government.
A township, under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is the lowest level of municipal incorporation of government. All of Pennsylvania's communities outside of incorporated cities, boroughs, and one town have been incorporated into individual townships that serve as the legal entities providing local self-government functions.
The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania was a proto-constitution for the Province of Pennsylvania, a proprietary colony granted to William Penn by Charles II of England. The Frame of Government has lasting historical importance as an important step in the development of American and world democracy.
A board of supervisors is a governmental body that oversees the operation of county government in the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as 16 counties in New York. There are equivalent agencies in other states.
Local government in New Jersey is composed of counties and municipalities. Local jurisdictions in New Jersey differ from those in some other states because every square foot of the state is part of exactly one municipality; each of the 564 municipalities is in exactly one county; and each of the 21 counties has more than one municipality. New Jersey has no independent cities, nor consolidated city-counties.
A county board is a common form of county legislature, particular of counties in the United States.
The monument at the William Penn Landing Site in Chester, Pennsylvania marks the spot of the first landing of William Penn on the territory of Pennsylvania, on October 28 or 29, 1682 (O.S.). Penn, the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, landed in the only town in the province, then known as Upland.
Local government in Pennsylvania is government below the state level in Pennsylvania. There are six types of local governments listed in the Pennsylvania Constitution: county, township, borough, town, city, and school district. All of Pennsylvania is included in one of the state's 67 counties, which are in total subdivided into 2,560 municipalities. There are currently no independent cities or unincorporated territories within Pennsylvania. There is only one incorporated town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.
William Biles was an American judge, attorney, legislator, sheriff, land speculator and merchant. Born in England and educated in law, Biles brought his family to America in 1679 and settled in what would become Falls Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, before the charter of William Penn. The Biles family had been persecuted for their religious dissension in England, and William became a prominent Quaker minister. "After the withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence dissenters were more often punished for being absent from their parish churches... Quakers were always fair game and in the following spring (1674) two of them, William Biles and Thomas Strong, were presented at the Assizes." Presumably punishment for being absent from their parish church and attending Quaker ceremonies.
William Clayton was a settler of the Pennsylvania colony, one of the first councilors of Pennsylvania and a judge of the city of Philadelphia.
A tenth was used to divide the former American Province of West Jersey into smaller administrative divisions. Despite seemingly related names, tenths are not directly related to hundreds, other than both being administrative divisions.
The Penn–Calvert boundary dispute was a long-running legal conflict between William Penn and his heirs on one side, and Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and his heirs on the other side. The overlapping nature of their charters of land in Colonial America required numerous attempts at mediation, surveying, and intervention by the king and courts of England to ultimately be resolved. Subsequent questions over these charters have also been adjudicated by American arbitrators and the Supreme Court of the United States. The boundary dispute shaped the eventual borders of five U.S. states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
The Bergen County Executive is county executive of Bergen County, New Jersey, United States who, as the chief officer of the county's executive branch, oversees the administration of county government. The office was inaugurated in 1986 at the same time the Board of Chosen Freeholders, which plays a legislative role, was reconfigured. The New Jersey Superior Court had subsumed and replaced county courts in 1983. The executive offices are located in the county seat, Hackensack.
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