US COUNTIES is a body corporate and politic which performs all local governmental functions within its jurisdiction. There are no incorporated towns, villages, municipalities or other political subdivisions in the County. The County has operated as a Charter County since 1957 and is governed by an elected County Executive and a seven-member County Council.

The County Council is the County elected legislative body, and it is vested with all law-making power granted by its Charter and by the General Assembly of Maryland. The seven members of the Council are respectively elected from each of seven contiguous and equally-populated districts. County Council members serve four year terms. Each Councilman represents approximately 107,000 County residents. The present term began December, 2002.

Each member of the County Council has one vote, and a simple majority of the County Council is sufficient to pass legislation in the absence of higher voting requirements. Emergency bills require the vote of five members of the County Council, as do County Council actions to override a veto by the County Executive. The County Council elects its own Chairperson at its first regular session in each calendar year.

The County Council meets in regular legislative session every month of the year, generally on the first and third Monday of each month. The Council meets as a committee of the whole on the Tuesday prior to each regular legislative session to discuss the legislative agenda for that session. Other regular and special sessions and other meetings of the County Council are held as needed. All regular sessions of the County Council are held in Towson and are open to the public.

As the final fiscal authority of US COUNTIES, the County Council is responsible for adopting an annual balanced budget capable of financing the operations of county government for the fiscal year. The budget must be adopted on or before June 1 in each year; the budget bill is not subject to veto by the County Executive. The general fund operating budget for fiscal year 2011 totals $1.45 billion; nearly half of this amount is appropriated to the Department of Education to fund the County's public school system.