1000 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

There are mandatory increases in State and Education retirement
systems, and statutory increases in State aid to the subdivisions, but
additional funds are being recommended only where absolutely es-
sential.

The Department of Social Services budget has been increased $6. 5
million to accommodate an anticipated expansion in the Aid to
Families With Dependent Children caseload. The Mental Hygiene
budget has been raised $5. 3 million to finance the employment of
additional staff for new facilities opening at Crownsville, the Eastern
Shore State Hospital, Rosewood, Springfield, and the long awaited
Metropolitan Washington Retardation Center, which is scheduled to
open in March of 1970.

The University of Maryland and the State College system budgets
have been increased by $9. 9 million, mostly for faculty salaries. The
balance of the recommended increases are mainly allocated to the
Comptroller of the Treasury and the Departments of Juvenile Serv-
ices, Correction and Health.

I am passing on a clean slate with every option open. This fulfills
a vital obligation on my part — a responsibility not to burden my
successor with debts nor dictate policy. The new Governor is free
to be his own man, to establish new directions and new policies for
Maryland. This is his right and his responsibility.

Let me say that it is not an absence of interest that motivates my
restraint, for the very opposite is true. It is my high regard for the
Office of Governor and my overwhelming respect for the right of
leadership this office confers. I have kept my peace so the new Gov-
ernor may have every opportunity to lead, unfettered by derisions not
of his making.

Finally, I would like to point to the Governor's Operating Econ-
omy Survey as a newly launched project of tremendous promise.
This effort to economize by using new management techniques is en-
tirely financed by the private sector. Maryland's leading businesses
and industries are lending their best minds to the effort. The resulting
voluntary partnership is good citizenship of the highest order. It
should produce savings of millions to our taxpayers.

Now it is time to reflect on the one great failure — the failure of
Maryland's proposed Constitution. The absence of a modern con-
stitution becomes most glaring on this day when the process of suc-
cession must be determined by procedures set over a century ago.