Maryland lawmakers yesterday to investigate the Ehrlich administration’s
hiring practices, saying political staffers have established a parallel hiring
system that dispenses jobs and salary increases to favored appointees while
wrecking morale of career employees.
“There is, in fact, a `shadow government’ operating outside of the state
personnel system which is operating to terminate career professionals, and
fill those positions with their own candidates,” said George W. Casey in a
detailed six-page letter to Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House
Speaker Michael E. Busch.
He wrote that such practices “have violated state personnel practices and
have been extremely harmful to the integrity of the state workforce.”
The letter drew a sharp rebuke from Transportation Secretary Robert L.
Flanagan, who said all personnel changes in his department have been made
according to state regulations and law.
“Since when can you get away with characterizing the governor and his staff
as a `shadow government’?” he said. “They’re the people who the citizens
elected.”
Casey’s letter was faxed to the legislative leaders a day after the Ehrlich
administration launched a vigorous defense of its personnel system, and comes
as lawmakers are considering a formal investigation into hiring and firing
overseen by aides to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
One of those aides, Joseph F. Steffen Jr., a former longtime Ehrlich
congressional staffer, was fired last week for spreading rumors on an Internet
message board about the family life of Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley.
Current and former workers say Steffen created lists of employees to be fired
in several state agencies.
“It would be irresponsible for us not to do an investigation at this
point,” Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat and chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, said of the letter. “This is one smoking gun of
what is going to turn out to be a smoking arsenal.”
Casey’s assertions offer a sharp contrast with statements a day earlier
from Lawrence J. Hogan Jr., Ehrlich’s appointments secretary, who said the
administration was following the law in its personnel decisions.
Hogan said Friday that the administration has replaced fewer than 300
high-ranking employees. He said Democrats were grumbling because the patronage
system they created over four decades was snatched from them with the 2002
election of Ehrlich, a Republican.
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In an appearance on WBAL radio yesterday, Ehrlich said: “We don’t hire on
the basis of party identification. We hire on the basis of, `Are you with our
program?’ If you’re not with our program, you’re not going to get hired, and,
in fact, you may lose your job.”
But Frosh said no other administration has delved so deeply into
nonpolicy-making jobs in state agencies. Casey’s letter, Frosh said, brings
clarity to anecdotal evidence he has heard from fired workers at the state
natural resources, environment, human resources and juvenile justice agencies,
among other departments.
“There are too many of them for it to be anything other than an organized
effort,” Frosh said.
Casey — who in his letter said he has doctorates in applied anthropology
and business administration and more than 20 years of human resources
experience, including as a high-ranking manager with Safeway supermarkets —
faxed signed copies of his letter to Busch and Miller.
During a brief interview at the front door of his Crofton home last night,
Casey confirmed that he wrote the letter and said he was hired as the director
of human resources for the transportation department Sept. 5, 2001. He
declined to answer other questions.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” he said, “but I’m not going to say anymore. The
letter speaks for itself.”
In his letter, he wrote that many Ehrlich appointees are committed
professionals. But their authority was undermined by another group, he said.
“There were, in reality, two administrations operating within the state
government. One group came to govern, the other to fire anyone who resisted
any of their improper actions,” he wrote. “The resulting vacancies were used
for political purposes. It was this second group that appeared, in many cases,
to be actually running the [transportation] department, not the secretary and
the administrators.”
Casey said officials in the transportation department are bypassing its
internal Transportation Service Human Resources System in making hires and are
replacing workers through a noncompetitive process at much lower pay grades
than before. He details what he said were violations of standard personnel
practices, such as a new employee signing documents for his own pay raise.
He said in the letter that he was fired last year after raising questions
about pay raises for certain appointees. The firing, he said, came days after
he received a rating of “far exceeds expectations” on his annual review.
Flanagan, the transportation secretary, said it appeared from Casey’s
letter that the former personnel chief had a poor understanding of the
regulations and of the kind of turnover that should be expected after an
election, especially after a change of parties. Casey came to the department
from the private sector in 2001, at the tail end of the administration of
Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening.
Flanagan said that of the 9,000 transportation employees, 541 are
considered “executive service,” meaning they serve at the pleasure of the
governor. Of that group, 41 have been fired since Ehrlich took office, and in
many instances they were people who had been hired by the previous
administration solely for reasons other than their qualifications, Flanagan
said.
The agency has been able to hire about 200 executive service personnel
because of normal turnover, he said.
Judy Slater, a 21-year veteran of state government who replaced Casey after
he was fired last fall, said Casey’s letter betrays a lack of understanding of
which employees can be hired and fired at will and which must go through the
civil service system.
Miller, the Senate president, said yesterday he had not reviewed the letter
and was waiting for more information and contacts from other employees before
deciding whether a legislative probe into the Ehrlich administration is
warranted.
“There really has to be some concrete evidence and vast wrongdoing, other
than politics as usual,” he said.
Risks of an inquiry
Busch, the House speaker, acknowledged yesterday that a legislative inquiry
would carry risks. Political observers say Ehrlich could portray himself as a
victim of a witch hunt by Democrats in the legislature. But the speaker said
state workers don’t deserve the treatment that he believes they are receiving.
“This has gone beyond the normal course of government and legislative
policy,” he said.
Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell, the House minority whip from Calvert County,
said Democrats were on a “sickening” crusade against Ehrlich. “This
ridiculousness of the obstructionists needs to stop.” he said.
Sun staff writers Andrew A. Green and Phillip McGowan contributed to this
article.