After months of asking to tell their side of Ehrlich administration personnel policy, Appointments Secretary Lawrence Hogan and his deputy, Diane Baker, at a nine-hour hearing Monday had trouble recalling the details of the firing of state employees they were involved in.
“I thought it was absurd,” said Sen. Thomas Mac Middleton, D-Charles County, chairman of the special committee on employee rights, on Tuesday. “They seem like they?ve had bad cases of memory loss.”
Neither Hogan and Baker could recall receiving e-mails from Joseph Steffen, an Ehrlich aide who worked at several state agencies, identifying people for termination.
“Joe Steffen made a lot of recommendations,” Baker said, suggesting they weren?t too influential.
Hogan vigorously denied allegations that the administration booted Democrats out of state positions so they could be replaced with Republicans and Ehrlich loyalists.
“Not a single person can ever say, ?I was fired because I?m a Democrat,? ”
Hogan said.
Several ex-state employees had told the committee just that.
Hogan also denied that Steffen, a central figure in the probe of the administration?s hiring and firing practices, was sent into state agencies to ferret out employees who could be fired. He said Steffen?s role was to go into agencies and recommend ways to make them more productive.
The committee also heard testimony from the state personnel director, Andrea Fulton, who handled many of the terminations, but said she didn?t see anything illegal.
“I never saw anything that had a party affiliation on it,” Fulton said.
She said 340 people have been terminated in the Ehrlich administration, many more than in the Parris Glendening administration, but a fraction of the 6,600 state workers who can be fired at will.
As a Glendening holdover, “when this administration came in, I was sure I?d be asked to leave,” she said.
Senate Republican leader Lowell Stoltzfus complained again about the time and money ? a dozen hearings over nine months and more than $1 million ? spent on an investigation that Ehrlich has complained is politically biased.
“We?re trying to wrap this up,” Middleton said.
The committee directed Special Counsel Ward Coe to begin writing a final report and to continue to try to serve a subpoena on Steffen, who has not been located. The committee has asked the attorney general to go to court to compel the testimony of two Ehrlich administration officials, Gregory Maddalone and Craig Chesek, who refused to answer questions at an earlier hearing.
? The Associated Press contributed to this story.
