"None of these are responses to direct, immediate concerns that could not wait for charter review," said Friedman, who added that Marylanders will be too wrapped up in the presidential elections and a statewide referendum on slot machines to be concerned with changing the county government.
"We believe it is a disservice to citizens by putting them on the ballot in a non-county-office election year," he said.
Council members said charter amendments are frequently passed outside the review process and that the high voter turnout during presidential elections would mean more people would to weigh in on them.
The most heated debate stemmed from the amendment that would force the executive to disclose interdepartmental transfers to the council, which Friedman said could slow down the government and open the door for the council to meddle in executive decisions and overstep its bounds as a policy-making body.
Benoit, who proposed the measure, said the amendment would prevent the council from being surprised by budget changes made by the county executive.
"They are appropriations that we never find out about and the taxpayers never find out about. ... If we are really going to operate this government under the full view of the public, we ought to do something such that we can see monies like this being spent," he said.
Benoit and County Auditor Teresa Sutherland presented a list of 44 such transfers - totaling close to $6 million - that were moved by Leopold's administration last fiscal year without the council's approval. Sutherland pointed to about $2.8 million reallocated within the Fire Department and $580,000 within the Health Department.
"I'm not questioning if [the transfers] are legitimate. I honestly don't know what it was," Sutherland told the council. "But that is a lot of money to be moving around without your knowledge and approval."
Councilman Ronald C. Dillon Jr., a Pasadena Republican, said he would vote against the measure because such microscopic oversight could weigh on the council's ability to deal with other issues.
"The county government can be very big and clumsy, and I just worry that we are making it even clumsier," he said.
steven.stanek@baltsun.com
