The budding relationship between new Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy and the County Council will get its first test this afternoon. That’s when the council will take up McCarthy’s request to transfer funding from other departments to her office to support the administrative reorganization she favors.

Early indications are the council won’t give her what she wants, at least today.

McCarthy has requested the council transfer about $261,000 from the county communication and human resources departments to the executive’s office. That would help boost staffing in McCarthy’s office and support a new administrative structure there.

Previous Executive John Ladenburg had a single chief of staff (Lyle Quasim) who oversaw county departments. McCarthy has hired three “executive directors” to divvy up the departments.

Throughout her campaign McCarthy spoke of reorganizing county government to make it more efficient and responsive to taxpayers. She sees the reorganization of her office as a first step. McCarthy told me this morning the new structure will help her get a better handle on the various departments and determine whether taxpayers are getting “the biggest bang for their buck.”

“The bottom line is, my goal is to make county government more efficient,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy said the new structure of her office is “budget neutral,” meaning it requires no new spending. It’s merely shuffling money between departments. McCarthy said the money is coming from vacant positions in communications and human resources and will not reduce services to county taxpayers or employees.

But the council appears far from sold. Budget neutral or not, Councilmen Roger Bush, R-Graham, and Dick Muri, R-Steilacoom, last week note McCarthy has requested a nearly 25 percent increase in the executive’s budget. And they question other cost-shifting McCarthy has engineered to pay for her reorganization.

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Some council members have expressed a desire to postpone action on McCarthy’s request until the council takes up a much larger $8 million budget-cutting measure in coming weeks. We’ll see what happens this afternoon.

McCarthy’s administrative plan may not be the last source of friction between the new Democratic executive and a council with a new Republican supermajority.

McCarthy met with the council three times last week – at a Rules Committee hearing on her administrative plan, at a council study session and at a Hood Canal retreat. They exchanged pledges to work together. But some of those pledges suggested this relationship has trust issues.

“I’m not going to be petty with you and I hope you won’t be petty with me,” McCarthy told the council at the retreat.