would coordinate and supervise but not direct programs in their
areas. They would provide a missing level of leadership and super-
vision between the specialized, detailed day-to-day administrative
work of department heads and commissions, on one hand, and the
highly generalized broad-policy duties of the Governor, on the other
hand. They would operate with a very small staff and not duplicate
department personnel. Indeed, a large staff at the agency level could
only encumber its policy and supervisory functions. Probably four to
six professional positions would be the maximum required; and they
would be concerned primarily with policy planning, program evalua-
tion, top-level management analysis, internal and external communi-
cations, and other relationships.

There are undoubtedly sound alternatives to the agency plan that
I have outlined here. But it has already proven itself effective and
efficient at the level of State government and merits consideration
for Maryland.

5. The Commission should make a special effort to end the pre-
sently unattached, 'floating' position of many agencies and boards
now scattered throughout the administrative organization. Such en-
claves of power tend to place administrative offices beyond effective
direction or supervision. They too easily obstruct effective decision-
making and become the preserve of particular private groups or
administrative officials too long insulated from the myriad changes
going on in Maryland. In essence, they violate the basic principle of
our form of government that all aspects of the executive branch shall
be accountable to the public through an elected official.

6. The Commission should undertake to the maximum extent
possible to assign purely administrative powers to single department
heads even though quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial powers are best
assigned to plural bodies in some instances.

7. Finally, I request the Commission to consider the merit of
recommending the addition of at least one representative of the gen-
eral public to all boards and commissions regulating special private
fields and at present made up by law only of individuals from that
field.

Such Boards and commissions are concerned primarily with
maintaining adequate standards in particular areas of business or
professional activity. Their membership should properly include in-
dividuals with experience and expert knowledge in the immediate

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