Just Elected to Office?

During the first months in office, your actions will have a big impact on your effectiveness during your first term as a county elected official. This section includes information and resources for your important transition from a candidate to an elected official.

Congratulations & Welcome!

Congratulations on your election/interim appointment to county office! You will find MACo offers many resources, including eight (8) MACo staff members, to help you better manage the demands of your new position. We hope that you will become an active MACo participant.

There are many opportunities for your input and participation including the Legislative Committee, choosing General Assembly members as your legislative Buddy and attending our quality educational conferences for local elected officials. In this section, you will find varied resources at your disposal.

We hope you will enjoy and learn from the advice of the others, who at one time, were in your "newly-elected" shoes.

Welcome to MACo and I hope to meet you soon!

Michael Sanderson
Executive Director

Guide to MACo

This brochure provides a brief history of MACo, an overview of our services, and legislative advocacy efforts on behalf of county government in the Maryland General Assembly.

Do's and Don'ts

We asked county government specialists to compile advice on navigating areas that often trouble newly elected officials at the very start. (pdf files)

Financial Management - Ray Wacks, Budget Chief, Baltimore City
Personnel Issues - Joe Adler, Montgomery County HR Director
Ethics - Ernie Crofoot, Esq. Funk & Bolton
Risk Management - Dick Furst & Larry Bohlen, Local Government Insurance TrustT
Legal Issues - Rob McCord, Harford County Attorney
Dealing with the Media - National Assn. of Counties
Tips on Testifying before the General Assembly - Leslie Knapp, Jr., Associate Director, MACo

Advice from County Elected Officials

Who better to offer you newcomer advice? . . . than fellow county elected officials, who've "been there, done that."

Robert Hutcheson, Allegany County Commissioner

Learn what all of the acronyms stand for, DBED, ARC, and countless others.

Rely on staff, county attorney and administrator who are already on-board and ready to help. Lean on those persons and don't try to go it alone.

As a newly elected official, pretend you are in a rowboat. Keep the oars in the boat until you see how the current flows. Proceed slowly.

Don't use "No comment." Rather, I suggest: 'I don't have an answer but will check on it and get back to you.' Then be sure to promptly get back to the person.

Dean Minnich, Carroll County Commissioner

The single best piece of advice I would give a newcomer is to pull in your horns: You are not going to be able to fix everything, you won't fix anything by yourself, you won't see anything fixed as quickly as you think it should be fixed, and before you get to the ribbon-cutting to commemorate what you've fixed, three other things will be broken.

What I would have done differently would be do more research on all the rules and regulations that get in the way of common sense. What you think should be easy is probably against some state or federal rule or policy.

The people I found most helpful are those who have institutional knowledge, both inside and outside the county office building. You will learn quickly which of those are whiners and which are problem-solvers.

The biggest mistake I made was saying I was only going to run for one term. I believed it at the time; actually, what I said was that I would probably not be re-elected to a second term because I would not make decisions designed to gain re-election. But some figured I was a lame duck from day one, and others didn't believe me and have chided me for running again to finish what I started.

The biggest challenge is to inform and engage the public, to lead them to become informed, and then involved. In that respect, I failed to meet my own standard, which takes us back to the top of the list -- Pull in your horns, you are not going to be able to fix everything.

Effie M. Elzey, Dorchester County Council member

The biggest challenge is to learn to lose gracefully and how to provide the "what's & whys" of your views on an issue.

After a vote, be prepared to go on to the next issue without harboring "bad feelings".

The Open Meetings Law, that specifies that no more than two persons can be together without advertising, is hard. You constantly have to be on guard to not break this law.

I would have taken more courses in public speaking. To make your point in a constructive and impersonal way is very important.

Find an expert in the problem that you can rely on and get their advice and then use it. Don't forget to give them credit for helping you.

Be open in communications and do not work behind closed doors. Be available to your constituents. Return phone calls no matter how hard the conversation will be. Listen to their concerns!

MACo is a good place to learn the processes and protocols of local government. It is important for you to avail yourself to their conferences and classes. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. If you have a problem, you can be sure that someone in Maryland has gone through it and will be willing to help you. MACo has a great staff that work tirelessly to help make you successful.

Continuing Education

Academy for Excellence in Local Governance - A voluntary certificate program for local government officials featuring required and elective classes on topics that impact county government - a "soup to nuts" program that local government officials may take up to four years to complete. MACo is a founding partner in the Academy that is administered by the Institute for Governmental Service and Research, UM-College Park.

Local Government Insurance Trust - Training for County and Municipal government officials on a wide variety of risk management issues.
Annual Summer Conference - Ocean City
Annual Winter Conference - Cambridge

Forms of Government

Do you know the THREE distinct forms of county government in Maryland? Commissioner, Code Home Rule and Charter forms of government are quite different in governance and the structural differences are important for the newly elected official to understand.