Thus, the first step toward county home rule was the provision by the Legislature of rigid alternative plans of county government. In 1963, with the enactment of Article 4 of the Municipal Home Rule Law, a broad grant of authority was provided to counties to establish the structure of county government and the manner in which it is to function. In our view, the residual Alternative County Government Law doe snot serve to restrict a county establishing a charter under Article 4 of the Municipal Home Rule Law nor does it restrict a charter or non-charter county acting by local law under Article IX of the Constitution and section 10 of the Municipal Home Rule Law. Counties can look to Article 4 and section 10 of the Municipal Home Rule Law as separate grants of authority. In acting under section 10 or Article 4, the Alternative County Government Law is irrelevant.
Authority exists for enactment of the local law.
Further, we believe, provided the local law would not abolish, transfer or curtail a power of an elected officer, that it would not be subject to a mandatory referendum. In a prior opinion, we found that a town may establish the position of town administrator using section 1 of the Municipal Home Rule Law as the source of authority. We found that if the local law permits the town administrator to act only with the approval of the town board, there is no transfer of powers. We stated that the town board could approve or disapprove any action proposed by the administrator, thus retaining ultimate decision- making authority. A second possibility is a local law which assigns or delegates but does not transfer administrative powers to a town administrator.