Maryland's managers of local government, men such as Anne Arundel County's Robert R. Neall, a Republican, and Democrat Parris N. Glendening of Prince George's, find themselves confronted at the start of 1992 with hemorhaging budgets, a bewildered citizenry and a government structures that don't quite fit.

The demands of educating and protecting those who obey the law -- while sheltering and feeding those who don't -- intensify. The number of voters who want low-cost, high-service, crime-free neighborhoods and schools with the lowest possible teacher-student ratio are exceeded only by the number who want no new taxes.

The parable of loaves and fishes might seem appropriate.

In the 1980s, county executives marveled as the money rolled in from brisk housing development, from sales tax revenues generated by unbridled consumer confidence and from a state economy that flourished in the ambit of Washington and seemed immune to the vicissitudes of economic cycles.

Thus far into the 1990s Maryland is mired in a deep and lingering recession. Government leaders are called upon to re-shape over-committed, under-funded service systems, to find better ways to work together and to help their constituents accept new realities.

Herewith, a glimpse at the management and educational styles adopted by two of Maryland's county leaders.

First, Mr. Neall:

Where, the woman demanded, was the man with the whistle, who had been supplied by the county?

"Her six-year-old son would not have a referee for his soccer game, and she thought this was a serious denigration of her quality of life," Mr. Neall recalls. He spends a lot of time talking to community groups and taking calls from people with complaints.

"I calmed her down. Surely, I said, a high school student or a parent or a spectator could be the referee," he suggested.

In the 1990s, twice-a-week garbage disposal, let alone soccer referees, might not be there for the citizens of some jurisdictions. Money to buy lovely parks such as Quiet Waters might not be there. A $50,000-evening at Kinder Park with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra almost certainly won't be there, Mr. Neall said.

The symphony visit may seem an extravagance in the light of massive budget cuts, threatened layoffs and even more convincing denigrations of life as many had come to expect it. Yet that is not the point, Mr. Neall says.

"Fifty thousand was very reasonable. Ten thousand people came to listen. It was something nice to do.

"But there isn't enough money anymore. Maybe we'll have the Naval Academy Band or the Chesapeake Student Symphony," he said.

Each county government may not be able to have a department of aging, or even a parks department. The scope and sophistication of local government may not be supportable in the future.

"We have tried not to affect our customers. We're working longer and harder with fewer dollars to give people the same level of service. We' re trying to move as much change as we can through the system without busting the rivets," he says.

But he sees the county's 4,000-member work force falling 10 or 15 percent over the next few years.

In the future, a commercial quick-lubrication shop will change oil for the county's cars -- not the county's $40,000-a-year mechanics, who may find themselves reduced in number and working exclusively on specialized problems of police cars and fire engines.

Mr. Neall wants more park land for his county, but he's using bequests and trying to inherit land unused by Fort Meade. He's "hunkering down" with developers to get a portion of what they have.

He reads about the year in the decade of the '80s when revenue grew by 13 percent.

dTC "When they closed the books they still had $60 million. They couldn't spend the money fast enough," he said.

Today, he says, referring to both individual wage earners and the counties they live in: "Your take home pay won't take you home."

The voter is right to demand a hard look at government spending, he says. Asked if he's ready to ask his county for more taxes, he delivers a sharp kick to the underside of a polished meeting table in front of him.

"People think government officials are setting their money on fire. They have to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that government is listening. And the people I've talked to are not convinced."

Nor is he.

This year, under state law passed in 1987, Maryland is obliged to spend an additional $173 million on its public schools. The program is called APEX -- and Mr. Neall thinks the commitment should be removed from the law, leaving just enough to maintain teacher-pupil ratios.

"It's folly for us to think we can do things in 1991 the way we contemplated doing things in 1987. If you were going to buy a Jaguar this year and you lost your job, would you go ahead with buying the car? We have to re-think what we're doing."

Mr. Neall opposed this aid-to-education plan when he was in the General Assembly.

"APEX was a Trojan horse to raise teacher salaries. It doesn't have anything to do with raising test scores, the quality of education. Out of that $173 million three-quarters will go to increasing salaries," he says. This year, he says, that sort of spending can be curtailed -- despite the opposition of the state's powerful teacher unions.

"We have an opportunity to evaluate everything we do, why we did it that way. It's only in the tough times that you get a chance to make such fundamental changes," he says.

And, Mr. Glendening:

The Prince George's County executive was on government's case -- the state legislature and the governor, though he did not mention them by name. By being indecisive, he said, the government in Annapolis has exacerbated the problems of local governance. While local governments have made increases in taxes and serious cuts in service, he said, the state government has been indecisive.

"We seem to be in a do-nothing stage," he said, "but the economy is not on hold while we do nothing. Our schools and police departments are not on hold."

Mr. Glendening says the state's inability so far to provide the financial assistance it promised has made his job far more difficult.

"We did make the hard decisions of reducing budgets and increasing taxes. If it were not for state cuts we'd be $7 million above our (recovery) plan. There has to be more leadership in public decision making."

At a forum on his county finances last week, he said he has taken his work force from 5,900 to 4,900 employees over the last two years.

Also, county workers have been required to take 10 days off without pay; to go without scheduled cost of living increases; and county taxpayers were asked to dig down for another $40 million in energy, property and transit taxes.

When he raised taxes, he said, "there was no outrage in the community, in part because we said the money would go to our priority area, education." Budget cuts were accepted without clamor as well, he said, because people know what was happening and why.

"The outrage seems to be coming from a sense of drifting, of not being able to resolve the problems. In some cases it's better to make a decision, it's better to make a wrong decision, than to do nothing."

Mr. Glendening believes he has maintained the support of his county's voters because he set priorities, made tough decisions and communicated those decisions clearly.

"Manage," he counsels, "don't just react."

Here is what the people must be told, he said:

"If government cannot carry out all its missions fully, it is best to determine which ones can be deferred or eliminated."

He rejects across-the-board cuts in which every agency, however important, loses the same amount of money.

"If everything is important, then nothing is really important," he said.

County governments may have to do what Mr. Neall suggested to the woman in search of a soccer referee, but the involvement of citizens may have to come at a much higher level.

"Government," he said, "does not have to provide all the %J services, nor should it." Could citizens provide more fire service? Should citizens help maintain county roads? Could programs, now run by government, be taken over by citizens? Government -- and the governed -- must "step out of traditional ways of thinking."

"You have to have some alternatives, some leadership. I haven't seen leadership at all. Not at all. In the meantime time the recession gets worse.

Government leaders, he said, "have a responsibility to put together a program and say, 'This is what I think is right.' "

Cuts in state government services -- and some revenue increases -- will be essential, he said.

"I would hope they would be targeted to specific functions and not targeted to some black hole of an ever-growing deficit," he said.

And he predicted support from voters.

"Marylanders are smart. They will understand what's going on. They may not jump for joy, but they will understand what's happening."