Cabinet leaders confirm more layoffs

CUMBERLAND, Md. (Map, News) - Layoffs have begun in some Maryland departments to meet Gov. Martin O’Malley’s goal to cut $200 million from the state budget, two Cabinet secretaries told The Examiner on Tuesday.

And those waiting on replacements will be waiting a long time. The positions might never be filled, officials said.

On Friday, 12 state employees were let go in the Department of Business and Economic Development, Secretary David Edgerley confirmed Tuesday. They were “part of the savings plan,” he said.

“We’ve met our call” in meeting the required budget cut, Edgerley told members of the Maryland Economic Development Association at the Rocky Gap conference center near Cumberland. “Unfortunately, it will involve people.”

Deputy Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley said, “We are looking at all the usual places” for cuts, including lowering the level of jobs.

The longest list of threatened jobs being circulated among Republicans — about 20 so far — come from the Transportation Department. Swaim-Staley said there were positions that were being eliminated as part of a reorganization, but none of the terminations was political.

“Politics has never been on the agenda,” she said. The only thing she and DOT Secretary John Porcari look at is whether employees are “qualified and doing the job.”

Porcari and Swaim-Staley filled the same roles in Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening’s administration.

Miles Kress, the fired comptroller at the Maryland Port Administration, saw his March 8 termination differently. “In reality, I believe it was for working while Republican,” Kress said in an e-mail. “I did not think that I was ‘safe.’ The most stupid thing that happened is there was no transition since the new comptroller has yet to start.”

Kress’ position was in the executive service, as were three other employees terminated that day. Members of the executive and management service are at-will employees who can be fired at any time without cause. They are not protected under a new law that went into effect Friday, passed by the Legislature after an invesitgation of alleged political firings under Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

The ax is likely to fall in other departments. “There is no getting around in my neck of the woods that there may be some layoffs” at the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, Secretary Tom Perez said. He said a new system of issuing unemployment compensation by debit card rather than by check may save personnel as well as postage.

Planning Secretary Richard Hall said he too was looking at cutting positions in his small department. “State agencies have to be as lean and mean as possible,” Hall said.

O’Malley denied that the terminations were political and insisted the firings were needed in order to put “competent, professional” people in charge to help “make government work again.”

llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com

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