Unsung Maryland budget-writer and lawmaker dies.
After leaving from the State House, William S. Ratchford II—known as “Ratch”—advised five Baltimore mayors. He mentored scores of strong politicians and Maryland’s leading fiscal and policy specialists.
After a long illness, Ratchford died Sunday under hospice care at his Annapolis home. Aged 90.
Ratchford was the legislature’s fiscal office’s chief budget adviser for 22 years, helping legislators navigate the 1970s recession, 1980s savings and loan crisis, and other issues. He was a quiet, nonpartisan champion for economic discipline and probity who realized that politics drove everything in Annapolis. Lawmakers saw him as an honest broker and nonpartisan.
“Bill Ratchford was the fiscal conscience of the General Assembly,” said state Del. Samuel “Sandy” Rosenberg (D-Baltimore City), one of the few members who served with Ratchford.
Ratchford avoided the spotlight, but governors, especially the late William Donald Schaefer (D), sometimes resented him for blocking their priorities or exposing embarrassing government problems in state agency audits.
“Schaefer thinks Ratchford is a pawn carrying out the political objectives of a small cadre of legislative leaders,” a top assistant to the governor told The Washington Post in 1989. “He’s hiding covert political actions behind independent audits and budget cutting.”
Gentle leader
Barry Rascovar, former political journalist and deputy editorial page editor at the Baltimore Sun, encountered Ratchford in the early 1970s when he began covering the legislature.
“Schaefer would be irritated by anything Schaefer didn’t like,” Rascovar stated. “Ratchford always smiled. If possible, he made light of a situation.”
Former Gov. Parris Glendening (D), Schaefer’s successor, said he didn’t remember having issues with Ratchford but knew his ideas needed his support to pass the General Assembly.
Glendening claimed the legislators respected him greatly. Even before I became governor, I realized that “if you wanted to do something—the budget games, the money—you really had to have his sign-off.”
Glendening dubbed Ratchford “a caretaker of the public’s money, without ideology.”
After the Air Force, Ratchford worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland Bureau of Governmental Research. He worked 11 months as acting executive secretary for the Maryland Association of Counties in 1961. He then worked for the University of Maryland’s Bureau of Governmental Research’s Municipal Technical Advisory Service while pursuing a master’s in political science. In January 1964, MACo appointed him permanent executive secretary.
In a written tribute this week, MACo wrote, “Bill was more interested in building the organization than in active public policy advocacy.” He used to say, “I’m not a salesman; I couldn’t sell snow shovels to Eskimos.” “His commitment to the counties and his focus on keeping them unified developed the role of Executive Secretary from one of a helper to one of a leader among county officials,” MACo said.
Ratchford became a deputy in the legislature’s Department of Fiscal Services in 1968 and took over in 1974.
“Ratch was the go-to guy for several generations of legislators on budget and tax measures as well as interpreting how proposed bills would operate in the real world,” Rascovar said. His encyclopedic grasp of the budget and legislative language made him a non-partisan source for Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives. The ultimate answer man.”
Rascovar said Ratchford helped lawmakers and reporters as they debated then-Gov. Marvin Mandel (D)’s 1972 horse racing reform bill.
Rascovar said he assisted every reporter find out what was going on. “Every day there was a different twist and turn as the Mandel people tried to turn a simple racing bill into a bonanza for Mandel’s friends—and they almost succeeded.” (Mandel was imprisoned, but his conviction was reversed later.)
Ratchford, a budget expert, was conservative but flexible. He coined the term “out years” in Annapolis and warned lawmakers about deficit forecasts. He also understood political realities and assisted legislative leaders.
Rosenberg remarked, “My favorite Ratch saying: ‘That’s something we don’t do, except when we do.
Ratchford was a kind and encouraging manager in Annapolis.
“He was just the gentle leader who inspired others by his actions,” said Barbara Klein, his deputy at the Department of Fiscal Services and later a University of Maryland lobbyist. “He was known for integrity, dedication, fiscal abilities, and caring.”
Melanie Wenger, who was hired as a budget analyst by Ratchford in 1988 and later became chief of staff to the late Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D) and director of Montgomery County’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, said Ratchford knew how to get the most out of his subordinates without pushing them.
She stated everyone worked hard and were dedicated to excellence. “All him.”
Klein marveled by Ratchford’s calmness during heated policy deliberations.
“He taught us to give everyone the same information,” she said. Was he opinionated? He had a view. He was committed to impartiality. Bill was someone who listened to everyone.”
Ratchford mentored a lengthy list of Maryland policy experts at the Department of Fiscal Services, and Wenger said he promoted women when it was rare. Ratchford’s proteges include two future Budget secretaries, T. Eloise Foster and Fred Puddester; Richard Madaleno, a former legislator and candidate for governor who is now Montgomery County’s chief administrative officer; Beverley Swaim-Staley
Maryland’s first female Transportation secretary; Anne Ferro, who headed the Motor Vehicles Administration, became a top U.S. Department of Transportation official during the Obama administration and is now pres.
“One martini is not enough and two is too much,” Ratchford would say at staff gatherings, which seemed to fit his budgetary viewpoint.
In 1996, Ratchford announced his retirement from the General Assembly, but Miller and then-House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. (D)—who died on Monday—persuaded him to continue on for another year to assist reorganize the legislature’s central staff. The Department of Legislative Services oversees legislative fiscal and policy shops.
“He’s always been a big supporter of the school,” said W. Robert Hair, superintendent and CEO.
After retiring from the state, Ratchford became a consultant to then-Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke (D), helping officials in his hometown examine state budgets and consider how Annapolis legislation may affect municipal services and inhabitants.
He worked for the following four mayors—Martin O’Malley (D), Sheila Dixon (D), Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D), and Catherine Pugh (D)—before quitting city employment in 2017. Ratchford worked closely with Rawlings-Blake’s father, former House Appropriations Committee Chair Howard “Pete” Rawlings (D), in Annapolis.
Nancy Ratchford, his wife of 65 years, daughters Linda Hesford of Annapolis and Wendy Rhoe of Chester, and three grandchildren, Timothy, Michael, and Collins Hesford, survive him.
A subsequent memorial will be organized. In honor of Ratchford’s other fascinating background, the family requests memorial donations to the Maryland School for the Blind. Ratchford lived on the Baltimore school campus while his father was superintendent from 1939 until 1969 and his wife taught there for many years.
