After health care, the second-largest chunk of the state budget goes to kindergarten to 12th-grade education: $6.2 billion.

The key difference with almost all the other departments is that the governor has no direct control over the agencies that spend the education money ? the state and local school boards, school superintendents, and the university and college boards. “The state Department of Education is unlike any other department in state government,” said June Streckfus, one of three co-chairs of Gov. Martin O?Malley?s transition workgroup.