I

PRESENT STRUCTURE

Maryland's government, like that of the other states, has passed
through an incredibly rapid evolution in the last two decades. Both
the nature and size of its responsibilities and services have expanded
substantially. Actually, of course, our entire society and economy
have experienced unparalleled growth and become vastly more com-
plex. Government, as the means by which we assure a tolerable
measure of order and harmony among us, has inevitably grown and
become more complex as a part of those underlying developments.
The expansion of governmental programs and purposes has been
accompanied by increases in budget requirements, personnel, the
number of agencies and boards, and methods of operation. Yet the
organization of the executive branch that gives coherence to all those
burgeoning activities has been updated only slightly. It now consists
of 105 executive departments, commissions and other special opera-
tions established by law and tied together primarily by their direct
line of authority to the Governor. In addition to that administrative
apparatus of 105 agencies, commissions and other administrative
offices tied directly to the Governor by law, there are another 43
special commissions appointed by and responsible to him — or almost
150 in all. These have accumulated over the course of a number of
decades, set up usually in response to immediate needs but with little
regard to the cumulative effect or their relation to on-going activities.

It simply makes no sense, for example, for the Governor to be
directly responsible by law for the state anatomy board, department
of post-mortem examiners, cosmetology board, sundry claims board,
board of boiler rules, and board of chiropractic examiners, plus over
a score of other such boards. Nor should individual institutions like
St. Mary's College, Morgan State College, and the Patuxent Institu-
tion, all admirable facilities, have direct lines of authority to the
State's chief executive while similar institutions do not. Those are
only a few of many possible examples. But they suggest the unneces-
sary detail which can come to a Governor, and the specialized boards
and agencies which are now immediately connected to him. They
indicate the historical disarray that has developed in the State's
executive apparatus over the course of many decades.

Turning to areas of wider substantive impact, it is illogical to main-
tain a number of administrative offices concerned with the State's
transportation problems, yet for them not to be grouped together and

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