When James T. Smith Jr. is sworn in this morning as Baltimore County executive, his administration, at least for a while, is going to look a lot like that of his predecessor, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger.
Smith didn't ride into office on a wave of sentiment for change, and he doesn't mean to make any right away. He has no policy initiatives he intends to roll out today, no first-100-days plan, no immediate personnel changes.
"I don't think I ever suggested during the campaign that there was anything that was in such detrimental condition that it needed immediate attention," Smith said. "Mine is going to be an emphasis on the things I talked about [in the campaign], but there wasn't something that was a cancer that needed to be addressed immediately."
The inauguration for Smith, councilmen and other county elected officials will be at 11 a.m. at the Towson Center arena on the Towson University campus.
Smith has a reputation as a cautious, deliberative man, and so far he is living up to it. He has spent the weeks since the election meeting with elected and appointed officials and studying the inner workings of county government.
Smith and others in county government say he will have to work quickly to build an agenda for the 2003 session of the Maryland General Assembly that begins in January and to prepare the county's budget in a time of austerity.
But the immediate change from the Ruppersberger administration to his, Smith said, will be one of style and tone, and the methodical way he is seeking input from people across the county is evidence of that, he said.
A 27-member transition team has spent the past three weeks meeting with county department heads and managers and drafting reports for Smith detailing the mission, organizational structure, successes and failures of various agencies. Their work is continuing and has not yet led to specific plans for change.
"We're trying to give Jim a heads-up on any immediate problems," said Joseph Blair, the transition team chairman and former head of Baltimore Life Insurance Co.
No rush into specifics
Over the last weeks of the campaign, Smith rolled out a series of "blueprints" for how his administration would address schools, community revitalizatoin, public safety, economic development and other issues. But those documents tended to outline general policy goals or ideas, not specific programs or legislation.
Smith said, for example, that he thinks high schools should be smaller, but he didn't say where and when he would build new ones.
He's not rushing into the specifics he proposed either. In the campaign, he talked about holding regular community round-table discussions where residents could discuss issues and problems with him and county department heads. He even held a dry-run of one in Randallstown during the campaign to see if the idea would work.
But because of the holidays and the rush to bring himself up to speed on county operations, Smith said the first discussion probably won't be held for several weeks.
County Council members, who for the first time will have the authority to confirm the executive's choices for department heads, generally shied away from suggesting immediate policies or priorities for Smith, who was a county Circuit Court judge for 16 years before resigning to run for county executive this year.
But they did say they're eager to see whether Smith intends to have as cooperative and open a relationship with them as Ruppersberger did. So far, not all of them are impressed.
"I think that it's pretty clear that the guy has been out of county government for 16 years," said Councilman Kevin Kamenetz, a Pikesville Democrat. "The county has changed a lot in those 16 years, and there's obviously a learning curve. He will have the benefit of the most experienced council in charter government history. ... I hope he takes advantage of that tremendous resource."
Quick action in past
Ruppersberger took quick action after his inauguration in 1994. He spent his first full day on the job touring salt storage facilities to make sure they were ready for winter storms, something he said was handled poorly by his predecessor.
In his first week, he fired the county's personnel director to facilitate the implementation of the Gainsharing program, an idea he talked about during the campaign to reward county employees for coming up with ways to be more efficient.
He also met with local elected officials from other jurisdictions to lay the groundwork for regional cooperation in crime fighting, economic development and transportation, a campaign idea that has been a hallmark of his two terms.
When Republican Roger B. Hayden came into office in 1990, he fired five department heads in the first week. Donald P. Hutchinson, a Democrat who was county executive from 1978 to 1986, had to deal immediately with a crisis in solid waste disposal and a civil rights lawsuit.
Unlike some others, Smith wasn't swept into office by a demand for change. He said his polling indicated that people are generally happy with the county's direction.
"When we came in in '74, there was a wholesale movement for change," said Theodore G. Venetoulis, a Democrat who was county executive from 1974 to 1978, immediately after the scandal that put his predecessor, Dale Anderson, in jail.
"I don't think that Jim has to do very much of that at this point. After he gets in there, his own priorities may begin to emerge, but I think his approach is very sound - he's very cautious," Venetoulis said.
In some ways, the transition is likely to be easier than usual because Smith and Ruppersberger are friends and their staffs have been cooperative. Smith already has transition team members working inside the executive's office.
That wasn't the case when Ruppersberger took over. He didn't get the keys to the executive suite until he was sworn in. Ruppersberger also had to continue the painful cuts in government that began under Hayden.
But Smith also faces a few complicating factors.
Dealing with delegation
A top priority will have to be putting together an agenda for the upcoming legislative session. Not only does Smith have little time to do it, but the county's delegation has had enormous turnover this year. Some of the most powerful and experienced senators have retired or been defeated, and 11 of the county's 21 delegates are new.
Michael J. Collins, who was chairman of the county's senatorial delegation in the Maryland General Assembly before his retirement this year, said Ruppersberger will be a tough act to follow - he was a constant presence in Annapolis, extremely gregarious and, true to his lacrosse and football days, constantly focused on keeping the delegation together as a team.
"We used to laugh at meetings and count how many times Dutch used the word team, but that was Dutch's persona. Dutch had a perfect attitude of working together," Collins said. "This is not to say Jim won't, but I think it'll be useful if he's a visible presence, if he comes down frequently and just goes around and sees the senators and delegates and lets them know he's interested in working with them."
Smith said he is working now on meeting with members of the delegation and with the House and Senate leadership.
"We have to get our own house in order as a team before we really go out to engage outside our own jurisdiction," Smith said. "I'm in the process of building lines of communication."
Smith will also have to set to work on next year's budget, which he must present to the County Council in April. Baltimore County's finances are in solid shape compared with some other jurisdictions, but revenues lag from the recession, and counties do not know how measures to balance the state's budget will affect the aid they receive.
Ruppersberger said he believes Smith's experience as a councilman from 1978 to 1985 will help him. Few executives have had county government experience before they were elected, but Smith knows how the budget process works, Ruppersberger said.
Smith has gotten a "bird's-eye view" of county finances from Fred Homan, the director of budget and finance, who has worked in that and other finance posts since the Hutchinson administration. Smith said he thinks the county can safely maintain the status quo.
"Baltimore County ... is in reasonable shape, not in a position to take a big hit from the state if the state determined that they were going to balance the budget on the backs of local government and not in a position to initiate new programs and significant compensation adjustments," Smith said. "We're in a position of not having to worry about layoffs or reductions in the level of services that citizens are expecting in Baltimore County."