Ehrlich's Hirings, Firings Reached Deep Into Ranks

Steffen had no influence on personnel decisions, according to two top Ehrlich aides, but the administration did try to ensure that state workers were loyal to the governor's agenda.

"The governor has said he wants people on the same page," Communications Director Paul E. Schurick said.

The state has been forced to defend lawsuits from a half-dozen workers who have claimed they were illegally dismissed because of their political views. In the case of Chrys Wilson, a spokeswoman at the Public Service Commission, a state court ruled that her dismissal violated administrative procedures and ordered the agency to rehire her. The state is appealing.

Daniel Clements, a Baltimore trial lawyer with ties to the Democratic Party, has represented three other plaintiffs, including Baltimore County Councilman Vincent J. Gardina, a Democrat. Gardina, who was paid $56,000 a year as a supervisor of dredging projects in the quasi-public Maryland Environmental Service, was fired in September 2003. The state settled the case for $100,000 in February, Clements said.

Other cases are pending, including one filed in Baltimore Circuit Court by Robin Grove, who supervised several programs at the Department of the Environment. Two days before Ehrlich took office, Grove was one of 30 people who received dismissal notices advising them that "the new Governor's appointees will be assuming responsibility for your position" on Inauguration Day, Jan. 15.

Maryland's situation is in stark contrast to Virginia's. Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) fired about 40 of 181 political appointees when he took office in 2002, according to Warner's deputy press secretary, Kevin Hall. The rest resigned voluntarily, stayed in place, were replaced by civil service employees or moved to other state jobs, he said.

After Ehrlich took office, when some workers learned that they were being dismissed, they were given only minutes' notice before being escorted out by armed guards, many of them have said.

Wilson, of the Public Service Commission, was hustled out of her Baltimore office by a state trooper, and her photograph was posted in the building's lobby so security guards would know not to let her return, she said.

Nader, the former payroll manager at Baltimore City's Department of Social Services, part of DHR, said she believes she was pushed out in November 2003 because she refused when her director asked her to add an employee to the payroll and backdate the paperwork three months. The director, who did not return telephone calls to his home, told her that the order came from the governor's office.

Burgess, the agency personnel director at the time, said he was told that the employee had been working for the governor, had not been paid and was to be placed on the DHR payroll. He also said he was told that the agency needed Nader's position for an Ehrlich appointee.

Nader filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement. A state court dismissed the case last year on technical grounds; her appeal is pending.

Mary Sacilotto, who worked at DHR automating welfare payments, said she was given 20 minutes to clean out her desk. Sacilotto had worked for the state for 25 years and assumed that she would spend her career there, but she was forced out five years shy of becoming eligible for her full pension.