Franchot, O'Malley clash

The Baltimore Sun

Last week's debate over an Eastern Shore land deal brought to the surface tensions that have been brewing between Gov. Martin O'Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot for months over how Maryland's chief tax collector plans to change the structure and scope of his office, a problem some political observers believe became inevitable when voters elected the two highly ambitious Democrats last fall.

A day after Franchot demanded a halt to an open-space purchase in Queen Anne's County until the administration answered his 11-point query about the deal, the governor directed some unusually pointed public barbs at Franchot, who represented Montgomery County in the House of Delegates for two decades.

And a series of letters and e-mails between their staffs reveal deep misgivings on the governor's part about Franchot's attempts to bulk up his top staff.

Franchot has made no secret of his desire to move the comptroller's office further into the policy realm than his predecessors did, and those who have watched him over the years say it was only a matter of time before he started stepping on the governor's toes.

"He's not the governor, in case nobody has told him that," said Del. Galen R. Clagett, a Frederick Democrat who counts himself as a friend and supporter of Franchot. "Peter needs to read his job description. I think he's overstepped on a number of occasions, and am I surprised by that? No."

The most recent dust-up came when Franchot questioned why the state and Queen Anne's County were paying $5 million for the land -- $400,000 more than the highest appraisal and nearly $1 million more than the average of two appraisals.

Franchot also expressed concern that Department of Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin, who did consulting work related to the deal before coming to the O'Malley administration, had a conflict of interest.

O'Malley was not amused. At a news conference, the governor dismissed the issues raised in Franchot's "18-question interrogatory," saying that neither they nor any facts that had come to light warranted a review of "the decision the Board of Public Works reached unanimously."

"I would hope in the future he might ask these questions up front as opposed to after the fact," O'Malley said, referring to Franchot's Board of Public Works vote in favor of the deal two weeks before.

O'Malley, 44, and Franchot, 59, have generally spoken well of each other in public since they took office in January, and Franchot spokesman Joseph H. Shapiro denied any sort of tension between the two offices, saying the governor and comptroller "have a great relationship."

"Together they've made a priority of expanding the [minority business] program opportunities. Together they have stood up for the environment to protect the Chesapeake Bay and for land preservation, and they're working together to try to advance and promote green building technology," Shapiro said.

O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the governor and comptroller "have a good working relationship at the Board of Public Works" and Franchot will play a vital role in solving the state's projected budget shortfall.

""We're going to need the comptroller's office to make sure they are doing their due diligence to collect revenue that is owed to the state," Abbruzzese said.

O'Malley declined to be interviewed for a Sun profile of Franchot in May.

Shapiro said Franchot has also worked to close corporate tax loopholes, step up enforcement of gaming and amusement taxes and join with the federal government to collect back taxes.

But Franchot's focus on issues beyond taxes points to what is unusual about his administration.

The comptroller's office, a $108 million-a-year, 1,100-employee operation, is relatively high-profile, despite its rather mundane duties, because it comes with one of three seats on the Board of Public Works, a unique-to-Maryland institution that must approve nearly all state contracts.

The previous comptroller, former governor and Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer, often used his time at the Board of Public Works to comment on anything that popped into his mind, including the Chesapeake Bay, open space and minority business programs. But his involvement in those issues generally ended there.

Before him, Louis L. Goldstein held the post for decades. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Goldstein and his predecessor, J. Millard Tawes, were both outspoken in their opinions about matters before them at the Board of Public Works, but only about those issues.

Not so with Franchot.

Before taking office, Franchot said he would view anything related to state finances as part of his office's purview.

During the General Assembly session, he frequently testified on legislation dealing with the environment, and in May he took a delegation to a biotech conference in Boston.

He used his perch on the board to help derail a proposed residential development in a bay "critical area" on Kent Island, voting with O'Malley to deny a wetlands permit to the developer.

At the Maryland Municipal League convention in Ocean City last month, the backdrop to his booth read, "Comptroller of Maryland: More than just collecting taxes."

When he gave a speech to the municipal leaders there, he spent about a minute talking about tax collection (not counting an anecdote about a worker opening tax returns who asked to have her picture taken with the comptroller and was disappointed to learn it was no longer Schaefer).

The rest of his remarks were about his ideas for how Maryland should close a projected $1.5 billion budget shortfall, the most concrete of which was to reject slot machine gambling, which O'Malley supports in a limited form.

Budget balancing, economic development and environmental policy have all traditionally been the purview of the governor, not the comptroller, but O'Malley has said little publicly about Franchot's activities. However, correspondence between the two officials' staffs, released by the governor's office in response to Public Information Act requests, shows they are not always on the same page.

Most of the back-and-forth concerned Franchot's plan to add two deputy comptrollers to the one Schaefer had -- and to bring them in at the highest end of the pay scale.

He wanted to elevate David S. Weaver, who was communications director to former Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, to a similar post and to add another position for a top aide he planned to recruit.

He eventually hired Len N. Foxwell, who held transportation and communications jobs in Gov. Parris N. Glendening's administration and later worked as a lobbyist for the Greater Washington Board of Trade and for Salisbury University.

Franchot kept Schaefer's deputy comptroller, Linda Tanton, asking to increase her salary from $128,603 to $148,245 to bring her to the same pay level as Weaver and Foxwell.

O'Malley's budget secretary, T. Eloise Foster, wrote to Franchot on May 14 that the administration had "significant concerns about your proposal and the need for a three-deputy organizational structure, as well as the proposed salaries for these jobs." She said she could not support the proposal but that, owing to his status as a constitutional officer, the governor's office would not stand in his way if he chose to go through with the plan.

Foster also objected to Franchot's hiring of a part-time liaison to county registers of wills and to his proposal to raise the salary of Weaver's deputy, Craig Zucker.

Shapiro said Franchot understood the budget department's desire to streamline government, but he said the higher salaries were necessary to attract top talent. O'Malley's chief of staff and his chief lobbyist both make slightly more than Franchot's top aides, as do several of the governor's Cabinet secretaries.

"We don't believe that this caused a rift or is part of a rift between the two staffs," Shapiro said. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, we're working together, moving forward on the same page, and I think this issue is behind us."

But Miller, who did not back Franchot in the Democratic primary last year, said that if Franchot doesn't start acting like more of a team player and focus on the core of his job description, the conflicts will never end.

"It's certainly not too late for him," Miller said. "There's always a feeling-out process, a growing-up process, and I just hope he adjusts. Otherwise, I think the governor will be looking for another candidate for comptroller three years from now."

andy.green@baltsun.com

The Governor

Martin O'Malley

Age:

44

Family:

Married, four children

Prior jobs:

Baltimore mayor, city councilman, attorney

Education:

Catholic University of America, B.A., 1985; University of Maryland School of Law, J.D., 1988

Military service:

None

Hometown:

Rockville

Current residence:

Annapolis

The Comptroller

Peter Franchot

Age:

59

Family:

Married, two children

Prior jobs:

State delegate, attorney, self-employed business consultant

Education:

Amherst College, B.A., 1973; Northeastern University School of Law, J.D., 1978

Military service:

U.S. Army, 1968-1970

Hometown:

Providence, R.I.

Current residence:

Takoma Park

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