One State. One Right. Different Rules.
work-labor · September 4, 2026
Maryland State employees supposedly work under the same statewide reasonable accommodation policy.
Key takeaways
- Maryland has a statewide reasonable accommodation framework, but agencies administer accommodation requests through different internal systems.
- The current DBM Reasonable Accommodations Policy and Procedure is revised January 23, 2025, meaning comparisons should use the current policy rather than relying solely on the 2023 version.
- Administrative variation is not automatically improper. Agencies have different missions, organizational structures, essential job functions, and operational requirements.
- The risk appears when administrative variation begins affecting substantive access. Different paperwork, documentation expectations, gatekeepers, delays, or decision structures can change the employee experience.
- MDH, DPSCS, DHS, Commerce, and DJS demonstrate materially different administrative models for implementing accommodation obligations.
- Forms and procedures matter. Employees experience websites, forms, supervisors, ADA coordinators, documentation requirements, and approval processes, not merely statewide policy language.
- Maryland should measure accommodation administration across agencies. Processing time, approval and denial rates, documentation requirements, alternative accommodations, complaints, and reversals could reveal inconsistencies invisible at the policy level.
- The goal should not necessarily be identical agency procedures. The stronger governance model is a statewide administrative floor with agency flexibility above it.
Maryland State employees supposedly work under the same statewide reasonable accommodation policy.
That does not mean they experience the same reasonable accommodation process.
That distinction deserves far more attention than it receives.
One employee may deal primarily with a centralized Equal Employment Opportunity office.
Another may begin with a supervisor.
Another may encounter a local ADA liaison.
Another may work through a unit ADA designee.
Another may receive an agency-specific form.
Another may work in an operational environment where additional procedures have been layered on top of the statewide framework.
Same State.
Same basic right.
Different administrative experience.
The question is not whether Maryland agencies should be allowed to develop procedures appropriate for their operations.
Of course they should.
The question is much more important:
How much administrative variation can Maryland allow before similarly situated State employees effectively have different access to the same reasonable accommodation right?
That is the question worth asking.
First, Maryland Does Have a Statewide Policy
Maryland's Department of Budget and Management publishes a statewide Reasonable Accommodations Policy and Procedure applicable across State government.[1]
There is also an important update to the record.
The version currently published by DBM is revised January 23, 2025, meaning the February 6, 2023 version should no longer be treated as the latest statewide policy.[1]
That matters when evaluating individual agencies because agency procedures should be compared against the current statewide baseline, not merely an older version.
DBM's statewide framework establishes the fundamental process.
A reasonable accommodation request does not necessarily require magic words.
The process is supposed to focus on the employee's limitation, the essential functions of the position, potential accommodations, effectiveness, and whether providing an accommodation would create an undue hardship.
DBM also maintains a statewide EEO infrastructure and now provides resources specifically intended to help agency Fair Practices Officers, EEO Officers, and ADA Coordinators build and administer their programs.[2]
That tells us something important.
Maryland has a statewide framework.
But Maryland also expects agencies to operationalize that framework.
And that is where things get interesting.
A Policy Is Not the Same Thing as a Process
This distinction is critical.
A policy establishes what should happen.
A process determines what an employee actually experiences.
Those are not always the same thing.
Two agencies can technically operate under the same statewide policy while creating very different administrative environments around it.
Different forms.
Different offices.
Different documentation instructions.
Different reporting structures.
Different gatekeepers.
Different internal tracking systems.
Different complaint procedures.
Different levels of management involvement.
Different interpretations of what information is necessary.
Different timelines in practice.
Different levels of ADA expertise among the people receiving the request.
That means the real employee experience may depend substantially on which agency appears on the employee's identification card.
Maryland Department of Health Built a Much More Developed Internal System
The Maryland Department of Health does not simply direct employees to DBM.
MDH maintains its own ADAAA Reasonable Accommodation Procedures and its own accommodation request mechanism.[3]
Employment-related requests may move through several possible channels, including a supervisor or manager, Personnel Liaison, unit ADA Designee, or the MDH Equal Access Compliance Manager.[4]
MDH also operates an online accommodation process.
Its public instructions currently tell individuals completing the accommodation form to upload "sufficient medical documentation" related to the request.[4]
That language deserves attention.
Why?
Because the wording presented to an employee can affect how the employee understands the burden placed upon them.
There is a meaningful administrative difference between telling someone:
Medical documentation may be necessary depending upon the circumstances.
and telling someone completing a form:
Upload sufficient medical documentation with your request.
Those statements may ultimately be administered consistently with the same legal standard.
But they do not necessarily communicate the same expectation to the employee.
That is exactly why implementation language matters.
DPSCS Has Its Own Accommodation Machinery
This becomes especially important when examining Maryland public safety.
The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services maintains its own Office of Fair Practices & Inclusion, EEO/ADA structure and its own reasonable accommodation materials.
DPSCS even uses its own branded form:
DPSCS Form #50-11bR, Request for Reasonable Accommodation, revised August 2023.[5]
The form collects information about the requested accommodation, position, work location, supervisor, whether the request is time sensitive, and other information relevant to processing the request.[5]
DPSCS simultaneously recognizes the statewide DBM framework.
Structurally, that produces something like this:
Statewide DBM Policy
↓
DPSCS Administrative System
↓
Office of Fair Practices & Inclusion
↓
Agency-specific forms and procedures
↓
Employee experience
That is not automatically improper.
It may be completely reasonable.
But it should be examined.
Especially in a public-safety organization where essential job functions, field responsibilities, security considerations, staffing, modified duty, telework, reassignment, and operational readiness can become part of accommodation discussions.
The more operational discretion an agency possesses, the more important consistent safeguards become.
DHS Uses Another Model
The Maryland Department of Human Services takes another approach.
DHS tells employees seeking disability accommodation to contact either their local ADA liaison or the Office of Employment and Program Equity to speak with the ADA Coordinator.[6]
That creates a distributed model.
Local access.
Central oversight.
Potentially useful.
Potentially efficient.
But again, different.
The employee's first interaction may occur locally rather than through a single centralized accommodation office.
That means training, escalation rules, documentation, consistency, and oversight become extremely important.
A statewide right administered through local gatekeepers is only as consistent as the system governing those gatekeepers.
Commerce Is More Centralized
The Maryland Department of Commerce illustrates the opposite approach.
Commerce states that reasonable accommodation requests under the ADA are received and managed by its Office of EEO and Fair Practices.[7]
That office also maintains medical documentation associated with accommodation requests.[7]
Commerce therefore presents employees with a much more centralized administrative structure.
Compare the models.
DHS: local ADA liaison or central office.
MDH: supervisor, manager, Personnel Liaison, unit ADA Designee, or central compliance manager.
Commerce: centralized EEO and Fair Practices administration.
DPSCS: agency-specific Office of Fair Practices & Inclusion with its own forms and resources.
These agencies may all be working toward compliance with the same fundamental legal obligations.
But they are clearly not using identical administrative architecture.
DJS Adds Another Layer
The Department of Juvenile Services also maintains its own Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, MGT-05-12.[8]
The policy was revised to include procedures for requesting reasonable accommodation and incorporates accommodation responsibilities into DJS's own management and EEO structure.[8]
Again:
Same State.
Same general legal obligation.
Different operational architecture.
At some point, Maryland needs to ask whether it is measuring only whether agencies have procedures, or whether those procedures produce reasonably consistent access to accommodation rights.
Those are very different measures.
This Is Not an Argument for Identical Procedures
That would be unrealistic.
A hospital does not operate like a correctional facility.
A correctional facility does not operate like an administrative office.
A parole and probation field operation does not function like a transportation headquarters.
A Natural Resources Police officer does not perform the same essential functions as an accountant.
Operational differences matter.
Essential functions matter.
Safety matters.
Staffing can matter.
Undue hardship requires individualized consideration.
The solution is not pretending every State employee performs the same job.
The solution is making sure operational differences do not quietly become different standards of access.
The Accommodation Administration Gap
There is a name for the problem Maryland should be examining.
The Accommodation Administration Gap.
It looks like this:
One statewide right. Multiple agency systems. Different forms. Different gatekeepers. Different procedures. Different documentation practices. Different levels of oversight. Potentially different employee experiences.
The existence of variation does not prove discrimination.
It does not prove an ADA violation.
It does not prove misconduct.
But it absolutely creates a governance question.
Because decentralized administration creates decentralized risk.
Ten Questions Maryland Should Be Asking
Agency-level procedures deserve closer examination when they potentially:
- Treat an agency form as mandatory when a valid accommodation request could otherwise be communicated without that form.
- Create the impression that medical documentation is automatically required for every request.
- Seek medical information beyond what is reasonably necessary to evaluate the disability-related limitation and accommodation need.
- Delay meaningful engagement in the interactive process while waiting for administrative paperwork.
- Allow an untrained supervisor or manager to effectively terminate a request before appropriate ADA or EEO review.
- Create temporary accommodations that continue indefinitely without meaningful review or resolution.
- Treat certain accommodations as categorically unavailable rather than conducting an individualized assessment.
- Apply additional evidentiary expectations to particular classifications without clearly connecting those requirements to essential job functions or legitimate operational needs.
- Add procedural hurdles that make obtaining an accommodation materially more difficult at one agency than another.
- Fail to adequately document why an accommodation was denied, why another accommodation was selected, or how the decision was reached.
Those questions do not attack agency discretion.
They test whether that discretion is properly governed.
The Form Is Part of the Policy Whether Government Admits It or Not
Government organizations sometimes make the mistake of thinking the official policy is the only thing that matters.
It is not.
The form matters.
The website matters.
The email instructions matter.
The supervisor's training matters.
The ADA Coordinator's interpretation matters.
The documentation checklist matters.
The routing process matters.
The approval chain matters.
The database matters.
The denial letter matters.
The appeal instructions matter.
The employee experiences the system, not the policy manual.
That may be the most important point in this entire discussion.
A beautifully written statewide policy means very little if employees encounter materially different barriers when trying to use it.
Maryland Should Be Able to Answer a Simple Question
Take two similarly situated State employees with comparable disabilities, comparable functional limitations, and comparable accommodation requests.
Place one employee in Agency A.
Place the other in Agency B.
Would they encounter roughly equivalent standards for requesting, documenting, evaluating, approving, denying, and challenging a reasonable accommodation?
If Maryland cannot confidently answer yes, there is work to do.
Not because every agency needs the same form.
Not because every job presents the same operational considerations.
Not because every accommodation request should produce the same outcome.
They should not.
The concern is whether employees are receiving the same quality of process.
That is a governance issue.
This Is Bigger Than ADA Compliance
There is also an enterprise risk problem hiding here.
Maryland has tens of thousands of employees operating across agencies with dramatically different missions.
If every agency independently develops portions of its accommodation administration, the State should have mechanisms capable of detecting divergence.
That means statewide governance should be able to answer:
Which agencies require forms?
Which agencies accept and properly process verbal requests?
Which agencies request medical documentation?
What documentation do they request?
Who receives it?
Who makes accommodation determinations?
How long do decisions take?
How many requests are approved?
How many are denied?
How many receive alternative accommodations?
How many complaints involve failure to accommodate?
How many decisions are reversed?
Which agencies have unusually high denial rates?
Which classifications experience the longest processing times?
Which agencies train supervisors who may receive accommodation requests?
Those are not merely HR questions.
Those are governance, compliance, workforce, and enterprise risk questions.
Standardize the Rights. Govern the Variations.
Maryland does not necessarily need one identical accommodation workflow for every agency.
It needs something smarter.
A statewide minimum administrative standard.
Agencies could retain operational flexibility while certain safeguards remain non-negotiable.
The State could establish minimum requirements for:
- recognition of verbal and written requests,
- commencement of the interactive process,
- medical documentation standards,
- confidentiality,
- supervisor responsibilities,
- ADA Coordinator review,
- written determinations,
- alternative accommodation analysis,
- reassignment analysis where applicable,
- denial explanations,
- complaint and appeal information,
- case tracking,
- processing-time measurement,
- training,
- periodic audits,
- and statewide reporting.
Agencies could build above that floor.
They should not be able to quietly build below it.
One State Should Not Mean Several Versions of the Same Right
This is ultimately bigger than forms.
It is about what statewide policy actually means.
If Maryland declares that its employees have access to reasonable accommodation, the quality of that access should not depend unnecessarily upon the agency administering the request.
Different missions can justify different operational considerations.
Different organizational charts can justify different routing.
Different jobs can require different individualized analyses.
None of that requires different standards of fairness.
Maryland already has the statewide policy.
Now comes the harder question.
Does Maryland have a statewide accommodation system, or does it have a collection of agency systems operating underneath the same policy title?
Those are not the same thing.
And for the employee asking for help, the distinction could matter enormously.
Sources
[1] Maryland Department of Budget and Management, Reasonable Accommodations Policy and Procedure, revised January 23, 2025.
[2] Maryland Department of Budget and Management, Office of the Statewide Equal Employment Opportunity Coordinator, Toolkit for Fair Practices Officers, EEO Officers and ADA Coordinators.
[3] Maryland Department of Health, Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, ADAAA Reasonable Accommodation Procedures.
[4] Maryland Department of Health, Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, ADAAA Reasonable Accommodation Request Form and Online Request Instructions.
[5] Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Office of Fair Practices & Inclusion, Request for Reasonable Accommodation, DPSCS Form #50-11bR (rev. 08/23).
[6] Maryland Department of Human Services, Office of Employment and Program Equity, Frequently Asked Questions: Disability Accommodation.
[7] Maryland Department of Commerce, Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Fair Practices: Enforcement of Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act 2008.
[8] Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, MGT-05-12.
Frequently asked questions
- Does Maryland have a statewide reasonable accommodation policy?
- Yes. The Maryland Department of Budget and Management publishes a statewide Reasonable Accommodations Policy and Procedure. The version currently available from DBM is revised January 23, 2025.[1]
- Do all Maryland State agencies use exactly the same accommodation process?
- No. State agencies operate under statewide legal and policy requirements but may maintain agency-specific administrative structures, forms, ADA coordinators, EEO offices, routing procedures, and internal guidance. Examples include MDH's accommodation procedures, DPSCS's Office of Fair Practices & Inclusion and agency form, DHS's local ADA liaison structure, Commerce's centralized EEO/Fair Practices model, and DJS's agency EEO policy.[3][5][6][7][8]
- Is it improper for agencies to have different accommodation procedures?
- Not necessarily. Different agencies perform different functions and may legitimately need different administrative structures. The concern arises when procedural differences potentially create additional barriers, delay access, increase documentation burdens, or otherwise alter an employee's substantive ability to obtain an accommodation.
- Why do accommodation forms matter?
- Forms can shape employee behavior. A form can communicate what an employee believes is mandatory, what medical information must be provided, who controls the process, and whether the employee believes a request can proceed without completing specific paperwork. Administrative documents therefore deserve scrutiny alongside formal policies.
- Why is DPSCS particularly important to examine?
- DPSCS operates a large and complex public-safety and correctional workforce where accommodation decisions may intersect with essential job functions, staffing, security, field operations, modified duties, reassignment, and other operational considerations. DPSCS also maintains its own Office of Fair Practices & Inclusion and agency-specific reasonable accommodation form.[5] That makes it particularly useful for comparing how a public-safety agency operationalizes the statewide DBM framework.
- What is the Accommodation Administration Gap?
- The Accommodation Administration Gap describes the potential difference between having one statewide accommodation standard and employees experiencing multiple agency-specific administrative systems. It can be summarized as: One statewide right. Multiple agency systems. Different administrative experiences.
- What should Maryland standardize?
- Maryland should consider statewide minimum administrative standards covering request recognition, documentation, confidentiality, interactive-process initiation, supervisor responsibilities, written determinations, denial explanations, tracking, training, appeals, and oversight. Agencies could retain flexibility for legitimate operational requirements while remaining accountable to the same administrative floor.
- Does different administration prove discrimination?
- No. Different administrative procedures alone do not establish discrimination or an ADA violation. They identify a governance issue worth examining. Determining whether a particular practice violates State or federal disability law requires analysis of the specific facts, applicable law, essential job functions, requested accommodation, interactive process, and other circumstances.
- What should be researched next?
- The next step should be a line-by-line cross-agency accommodation audit. DBM should serve as the baseline. DPSCS, MDH, DJS, DHS, Commerce, MDOT, and other relevant agencies should then be compared across: - request methods, - required forms, - medical documentation, - decision authority, - supervisor authority, - interactive-process requirements, - processing timelines, - temporary accommodations, - alternative accommodations, - reassignment, - telework, - written decisions, - denial standards, - complaint procedures, - appeals, - tracking, - reporting, - and employee safeguards. That analysis would answer the question this article raises:
- Are Maryland agencies merely administering the same right differently, or are some employees being required to clear different hurdles to exercise it?
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