As he campaigns for the U.S. Senate, former Gov. Larry Hogan touts leaving behind a $5.5 billion surplus, tax breaks, toll cuts and a balanced budget.

But state reports show the savings came at another cost — high vacancy rates in state agencies.

The Republican governor’s decision to downsize government kept agencies from delivering services when people needed them most, said policy analysts, union officials and nonprofit leaders watching and working for state government during Hogan’s time in office.

Some consequences of Hogan’s staffing and funding actions emerged when Gov. Wes Moore’s administration had to solve them, and in particular have shown up in the state’s top public safety agencies and others that provide key services, like transportation, health care and education.

A lack of corrections officers in prisons forced mandatory overtime and caused unsafe working conditions, according to a state labor union official. A shortage of health department inspectors meant nursing homes flagged for violations went unchecked, according to federal oversight reports. And there weren’t enough staff members to perform property tax assessments.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed Maryland’s lean staffing. People out of work struggled to get unemployment benefits from the labor department, causing the state to settle a lawsuit. A division of that same department responsible for worksite health and safety inspections had a 28% employee vacancy rate. Top planning department officials were let go, and those remaining were told to stop overseeing land use across the state, according to the former cabinet secretary under Hogan’s predecessor.

In some cases, Hogan filled state roles with private contractors, which in some cases cost the state millions more.

In one example, his administration hired a contractor to process payments for the state’s behavioral health care system that provides addiction and mental health services for low-income Marylanders. An audit found the state never vetted the company’s subcontractors, ignored warnings about the vendor and failed to test the claims system before launching it. System failures caused the state to overpay providers more than $200 million, underpay others and miss out on millions more in federal matching funds.

Hogan said at a recent campaign stop that making government smaller delivered on a campaign promise and that his cuts made state agencies more efficient and provided better services.

Now the Republican is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate, and should he win against Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, he’ll have a vote on federal budgets, including policy choices that will affect Marylanders, like federal Department of Education spending and limits on prescription drug prices. Some worry he could bring the same cost-saving philosophy to federal services.

“One of the fundamental tenets of the Hogan years was avoiding hiring new employees, even where there were numerous vacancies inside of agencies that needed people to do the work,” said Warren Deschenaux, the former executive director of the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services. The office reports state staffing levels to lawmakers each year.

“I do think he was under the misapprehension that he could get government services on the cheap,” said Deschenaux, appointed in 2015 by then-Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Michae Busch, both Democrats. Before that he led the Office of Policy Analysis for 17 years. He retired in 2017, two years into Hogan’s first term.

Deschenaux said the average Marylander may not have noticed state understaffing unless they were in need of government services, such as food benefits or temporary cash assistance, or a worker responsible for providing that service.

“What’s unique and important about government is their ability to help people,” he said. “And to the extent you’re impairing their ability to do that, it’s unhelpful to the mission of government.”

The Hogan administration trimmed wherever possible, Deschenaux said, and didn’t bring in long-term revenue streams. Much of the boom Hogan claims came from federal spending — nearly $6 billion in additional money during his second term, much of it pandemic relief.

Hogan said criticisms that he cut staff and undermined government services aren’t true and are coming from unions and “partisan Democrats.”

“Critics say a lot of things,” he said at a campaign rally in Millersville. “But we promised, when I ran for governor, I promised we were going to shrink the size of state government. We did it through attrition.”

Hogan inherited thousands of vacancies from his predecessor Martin O’Malley, according to state records. O’Malley furloughed state workers and trimmed budgets to navigate the Great Recession, but didn’t significantly cut employment and “resisted substantial reductions in spending on health and education” even after federal aid dried up, according to Deschenaux’s research.

Under Hogan, state vacancies increased by the hundreds starting in 2018 and worsened during the pandemic. Widening the gap, Hogan’s administration also dropped unfilled jobs, despite policy analysts’ warnings that agencies were understaffed.

“There is always more we can do to refine the hiring process and attract individuals who want to serve,” said Mike Ricci, senior adviser and former Hogan administration official. The Hogan administration did take steps to streamline the state’s hiring policies and removed barriers for job seekers, such as lifting college degree requirements, he said.

As Moore took over, new agency heads quickly learned hiring had to be a top priority. In some cases, hundreds more staff members were needed to support foundational operations.

At the Department of Juvenile Services, newly appointed Secretary Vincent Schiraldi said Hogan’s agency failed to invest in the state’s juvenile services infrastructure from top to bottom.

Schiraldi’s department’s job is to hold teens accused of breaking the law accountable, but also connect them with behavior-changing rehabilitative services, like therapy, mentoring or academic tutoring.

Hogan’s juvenile services agency sent roughly $130 million — most of it earmarked for youth rehabilitation — back to the general fund over his two terms, according to Schiraldi.

“The worst part is we [the state] had the damn money to do it, and we still weren’t,” he said.

Hogan regularly complained about the problem of juvenile crime while reverting money that could have supported children in need of services, despite a yearslong state commitment to therapeutic programs.

More than half of local youth service bureaus meant to help low-risk kids and their families were shuttered under Hogan. These agencies helped divert low-risk children toward positive activities, like sports and other extracurricular programs.

Efforts to reach former cabinet secretaries and other Republican leaders were unsuccessful.

With Moore’s support, Schiraldi has begun to rebuild. He’s dropped the vacancy rate to 11% from 18% and and is expanding rehabilitative services for teens. He’s also partnering with the corrections and human services departments to identify communities most in need of services.

The Moore administration has cut the number of state vacancies by 22% since taking office, according to the administration, but is well below their first year goal. They also have added thousands of new positions, according to a Moore spokesperson.

Secretary of Transportation Paul Wiedefeld has filled 600 positions across his agency, cutting the vacancy rate he inherited in half, he said. Like other agency heads, he’s hiring with worker retention and safety in mind.

“If you don’t have bus operators, that means you’re not running the bus,” he said. “Or it’s even more inefficient, because what you’re doing then is providing overtime for people that you do have, and it’s also unsafe over time.”

When Carey Wright became state schools superintendent in October 2023, 1 in 5 agency jobs were vacant, and just one person was focused on literacy. She plans to hire a team as large as 20 people to help students read better.

Patrick Moran, the president of Maryland’s state workers union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Maryland Council 3, said cutting staff destroyed morale, forced staff to do more with less and risked worker safety.

State employees, said Moran, want to do good work, but “time and time again, we saw that being undercut.”

Moran questioned how someone can perform at their best after multiple overtime shifts — and not always by choice.

Then, when workers did step up to fill the gaps, they had their overtime pay consistently shorted. The state settled a lawsuit, paying back $23 million to thousands of officers who had minutes shaved from their shift start and stop times. Another settlement for $600,000 to health department staff followed over shorted overtime pay.

Moore’s administration has also struggled to fill vacancies for public sector jobs with traditionally less-competitive wages. Moore said he’s now focusing on efficiently delivering services rather than on the number of filled jobs.

“One of the lessons learned is: I’m actually not interested in rebuilding someone else’s government,” Moore said ahead of the 2024 legislative session.

Moore has also added thousands of new positions, according to the Department of Budget and Management, and converted contractual jobs into state jobs. But the unions, in a recent news conference, demanded more staff in corrections and health care, less mandated overtime and prioritized worker safety. The corrections department was one of the most depleted agencies in January of 2023 and remains under tough scrutiny from the union.

Still, Moran said there’s been a notable difference in how Moore has approached the vacancies he inherited compared to how Hogan approached the gap he inherited from O’Malley.

“We’re battling through some of that stuff, and we’re going to agree to disagree,” Moran said. “But there’s not this absolute and complete disengagement from the fact that state government is depleted and the taxpayers are being harmed.”