Senate Budget Committee members told Comptroller Peter Franchot on Tuesday that were “insulted” and “ticked off” at him for his attacks on the Senate and his failure to work with them to achieve solutions to a state budget deficit.
But the senators also assured him they were not going to try to abolish specific staff positions as he had accused them of planning. The Senate had blocked Franchot from abolishing staff positions as a House Appropriations subcommittee chairman several years ago.
Franchot told them that “we made a mistake ? micromanaging an agency,” when he was in the House, and he promised to work more closely with them in the future.
Last week, Franchot said the Senate committee was aiming to remove some of his top staff as punishment for his outspoken opposition to slots.
“I take that as an insult not only to the body of the Senate,” said Sen. James Ed DeGrange, D-District 32. “I highly resented that as a member of this committee. We have never gone above and beyond recommendations” of the Department of Legislative Services. Franchot has agreed with most minor cuts proposed by fiscal analysts.
DeGrange, who was Franchot?s Senate counterpart overseeing the transportation budget, reminded him that he had tried to cut specific position identification numbers during the Ehrlich administration.
“It had a counterproductive impact,” Franchot admitted, asking the committee not to do the same.
Franchot defended the positions of his two deputy comptrollers and chief of staff, all three making $151,000, saying they operated “collectively and synergistically.”
Sen. James Robey, D-District 13, a former Howard County police chief, said he had been stabbed and shot at during his career, but never received the kind of threats he had gotten during the special session to raise taxes.
Franchot?s “attacks” on the Senate on taxes and slots “ticked me off,” Robey said. “You make it really hard for us to work with you.”
“We believe that your office wasn?t willing to advise us” on the taxes on services, complained District 12?s Sen. Ed Kasemeyer, the committee vice chair and Democratic majority leader.
“My staff is always available ? on any technical matter,” Franchot assured them.
Franchot had opposed the special session and criticized its action, but did not testify on most of its proposed tax increases. Again, he proposed a blue-ribbon commission on revenues and spending.
