ANNAPOLIS — Most of the attention in the General Assembly session was focused on slots versus taxes, but Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. scored a subtle victory when lawmakers passed his legislation to create a Cabinet-level disabilities department.
“This is an incredibly important priority for me,” said Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican. “It is an issue that we campaigned on and now we have gotten it.”
Starting July 1, the Department of Disabilities will oversee state agencies that primarily serve people with disabilities. The department will begin with a $1.1 million budget that includes money from the fiscal 2005 budget. The money will be used, in part, to hire five additional employees.
Mr. Ehrlich has named Kristen Cox to run the department. Mrs. Cox is now the director of the state’s Office for Individuals with Disabilities.
She is a Utah native and graduate of Brigham Young University. Before joining the Ehrlich administration, Mrs. Cox served in the Bush administration as a special assistant in the U.S. Department Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
She began working for the state in July when the unemployment rate was 70 percent for residents with disabilities.
“I think the current system is extremely fragmented,” Mrs. Cox said. “Historically, programs have been developed in isolation from one another, and we see [creating a department] as a way to make government smarter.”
Mrs. Cox, who must be confirmed by the Senate, plans to hire her current deputy director, Diane McComb, as the new department’s deputy secretary. She and Mrs. Cox expect to have a plan to improve the state’s disabilities system on the governor’s desk by the fall.
“They are two tigers,” Mr. Ehrlich said. “They’re just smart ladies.”
Mr. Ehrlich said he became profoundly interested in further helping people with disabilities as a congressman after a trip to the Maryland School for the Blind.
“I saw what technology could do,” he said. “The way we are housing people with disabilities has passed.”
Still, not everyone is sold on the need for the department.
“Frankly, I am concerned about the cost of starting a new department,” said Senate Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus, Eastern Shore Republican. “But it is his initiative, and we will see where it goes.”
Delegate Norman H. Conway, Eastern Shore Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, agreed.
“I am not sure that the time is right for a new Cabinet-level position when we are dealing with a significant budget deficit,” said Mr. Conway, whose committee oversees the allocation of funds to state agencies.
Administration officials have defended the plan, pointing out that during Mr. Ehrlich’s gubernatorial campaign in October 2002, he said he wanted Maryland to be at the forefront in complying with U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Mr. Ehrlich has eliminated about 3,300 filled and unfilled state positions since taking office in January 2003, a 5 percent reduction in state government. He has vowed to make more cuts and slow state growth to bridge a $1 billion fiscal shortfall left by his predecessor, Parris N. Glendening, a Democrat.
Lawmakers approved the governor’s fiscal 2005 balanced budget, but they did not pass the governor’s proposal for slot machines to generate revenue in upcoming years.
South Carolina has had a Department of Disabilities and Special Needs since the 1960s, and Texas has established a Department of Aging and Disabilities.
Mrs. Cox said no other state department has the “authority and the oversight capacity” to evaluate all the services people with disabilities in Maryland will have.
“I think ultimately our goal is to empower people with disabilities,” she said. “They can really live independent and productive lives when they are given the right training and opportunities.”
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