THEODORE R. MCKELDIN, GOVERNOR 2141

other agencies of the State that positions shall be filled from
civil service lists, and that selections shall not be subjected
to the danger of political or personal favoritism. The grave
apprehension expressed to me by the Maryland Classified Em-
ployees Association, and the individual employees of the Uni-
versity of Maryland, as to the consequences of House Bill 681
to their job security, and privileges, deserves consideration.

This bill would allow the University to pay its non-academic
employees, chosen without regard to civil service, more than
people of the same qualifications and in the same classifica-
tions and performing the same duties, are paid in other State
offices. It has been suggested in defense of this provision that
the salary scales established by the Standard Salary Board are
inadequate for employees living in the Washington area. The
plain answer is that the Standard Salary Board has power,
under existing law, to authorize differentials to meet special
conditions such as this is represented to be. If the facts sus-
tain the claim, the Standard Salary Board should be applied
to for appropriate action. Such a matter should not be deter-
mined at the will of one-man whose decision is beyond review.

The desire of every department head to be able to offer higher
salaries at will is understandable. For good reasons, however,
such a practice is not tolerated elsewhere, and little imagina-
tion is needed to foresee what it would do to the morale of other
State employees' if the University were given carte blanche in
respect to its employees' salaries. The grant of such authority
in this instance can be expected to bring demands for similar
autonomy in other departments. The consequence would be
the ultimate abandonment of the whole classification and
salary scale program of the State. There is not a personnel
officer anywhere who would condone such a practice in public
administration or private business.

The bill would make the University completely immune from
all restraint, supervision or scrutiny, for example, by the State
Planning Commission, whose responsibility it is to the Gover-
nor and the General Assembly to recommend a long-range
comprehensive capital improvement plan for all State institu-
tions. If, as the State Planning Commission has felt in the
past, the University should in the future decide on so costly a
program that the Commission deems it beyond the financial
ability of the entire State to finance, the Commission would be
without authority to so advise the Governor and the General
Assembly. The University could by-pass the Planning Commis-
sion, thereby destroying the effectiveness of this body in de-
veloping an integrated State capital improvement program.

Architects for all public construction are now chosen upon
the recommendation of the Department of Public Improve-
ments and approved by the Board of Public Works. The bill