Former worker says Ehrlich administration had a 'hit list'

[Thom Little]

A former personnel manager for the Department of Human Resources told a legislative committee Tuesday that the Ehrlich administration ordered that some employees in his agency be fired "so supportive Republicans could be put into office."

Thomas Burgess, a Republican who stayed on for about a year after Gov. Robert Ehrlich took office, said he was also fired and was told his name was put on a "hit list" because "I had the nerve to recommend that a Democrat be promoted" to a high-ranking position in the department.

The workers who lost their jobs were at-will employees who could be fired without cause, but Burgess said they were mostly long-term employees who did not hold policy-making positions.

Burgess was the first former employee to appear before a legislative committee looking into the firing practices of the Ehrlich administration. The committee's goal is to see if the firings were improper and if state law needs to be changed to provide more protection for at-will employees.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MD_EMPLOYEE_FIRING_INQUIRY_MDOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-13-16-39-27

[MountainLaurel]

1. Here's the Washpost story about the "death list"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301692.html

Top officials in Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration ordered the dismissal of a succession of mid-level state workers, plucked from a sheet of paper that an aide called the "death list," a former state personnel official told top lawmakers yesterday.

The targeted employees were fired, in some instances, solely because they were Democrats, and in each case to make room for Republican political appointees, said Tom Burgess, who yesterday became the first former state employee to testify under oath before the panel investigating Ehrlich's personnel practices.

The panel was convened this fall to examine complaints that Ehrlich (R) dispatched aides to reach into the state bureaucracy and fire workers considered disloyal. Ehrlich aides reiterated yesterday that they view the probe as a partisan witch hunt, exposing nothing more than the natural turnover when a new administration takes office. They noted that Burgess had been demoted before leaving his state post and now works for the city of Baltimore, where the mayor plans to run for governor.

Democrats said yesterday's testimony offered fresh evidence that Ehrlich abused a system that gave him discretion over 6,000 state workers serving in "at will" positions.