With a promise to run Maryland like a business, Gov.-elect Parris N. Glendening introduced his new budget secretary yesterday, announced raises for some key aides and said he plans to eliminate some state agencies.
At a news conference in Annapolis, Mr. Glendening said he will appoint Prince George's County budget chief Marita B. Brown as state budget secretary when he takes office next month.
Ms. Brown, 51, who earlier in her career served as budget officer for Anne Arundel County, will help oversee his effort to balance the budget without new taxes and trim government where possible.
Mr. Glendening, a former Prince George's county executive, declined to reveal which state agencies would be axed or consolidated yesterday. "We're conferring with legislators and people in the agencies right now. There are a number of agencies where there's a great deal of duplication and overlap," he said.
Sources said the governor-elect has expressed concerns about environmental agencies taking a long time to issue permits and having overlapping functions.
Raises for aides reflect the fact that Mr. Glendening's staff will be organized differently than Gov. William Donald Schaefer's, with power concentrated in a chief of staff and four deputies. Those staffers will make more money than some of Mr. Schaefer's top aides do now.
Several Prince George's County officials already are earning higher salaries than their counterparts in state government, and Mr. Glendening said it would be "inappropriate" and "unreasonable to ask them to take a cut from their current salaries."
Nonetheless, Mr. Glendening said he expects to reduce "slightly" the overall budget for the governor's staff by hiring fewer employees. The current governor has a staff of 91 and a $5.7 million budget.
Mr. Glendening said his new structure "will free up the governor as chairman of the board for [developing] policy, for making the hard decisions and for having the time to meet with the public, the legislature and the media. I believe in direct access to the governor. I believe in being out in the community."
His chief of staff, Major F. Riddick Jr., is expected to earn more than the $88,610 a year that Mr. Schaefer pays his chief of staff, Paul E. Schurick.
But Mr. Riddick, 44, a budget expert from Fort Washington, will take a cut from the $127,000 annual salary he will leave as administrator of Prince George's County government.
Mr. Glendening declined to reveal the new salaries for Mr. Riddick, Ms. Brown and other staffers.
Mr. Riddick, the first African-American to become chief of staff in Maryland history, said he would be earning "several thousand" less than the $127,000.
Nine appointees were announced yesterday, including five women and three blacks.
While professionalism and experience were the basis of his staff selections, Mr. Glendening said, he also strove for "diversity" in race, gender and hometown.
Six of the nine appointees currently work in the Schaefer administration. They include budget officials Arthur Hilsenrad and T. Eloise Foster, who will stay in that department.
Bonnie A. Kirkland, 40, of Takoma Park, a lawyer who has worked in Maryland's legislative and executive branches, will stay on as the governor's chief lobbyist.
Four other appointments, report ed yesterday in The Sun, were:
Deputy budget secretary Frederick W. Puddester, operations director Buddy W. Roogow, and Carolyn D. Davis, an assistant secretary for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, will become deputies to Mr. Riddick.
The fourth deputy is Michele T. Rozner, 36, of Upper Marlboro, who directed Mr. Glendening's consumer affairs office.
She is married to Annapolis lobbyist Joel Rozner, whose firm is working to bring the Washington Redskins football team to Laurel. Mr. Glendening opposes efforts to move the team to Laurel.