ANNAPOLIS -- The Ehrlich administration says law enforcement and education funding are safe, but other state agencies may face budget cuts of up to 12 percent next year as the governor looks to make up a projected $830 million shortfall and deliver a balanced budget to the Maryland Assembly in January.

"The governor is very concerned about public safety," said James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr., Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s top budget architect. Mr. DiPaula said that the first-term Republican is unwilling to ask law-enforcement or education officials to absorb further cuts in state funding.

But, Mr. DiPaula said, the governor has told other agency officials that their 2006 budgets would be 88 percent to 95 percent of what they received for fiscal 2005, which ends on the last day of June next summer.

"We are asking every agency to evaluate every program to justify those programs," he said.

Mr. DiPaula said Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican, has promised not to cut funding for the Thornton Education Act, which allocates $1.3 billion to close the disparity between rich and poor school districts.

The governor's budget team is gathering input from department heads, who have been told to have their scaled-down spending plans ready by Oct. 1. Once the spending proposals are delivered, Mr. DiPaula said, Mr. Ehrlich and his office can begin to craft the final budget, now estimated to be $24 billion. That would be up from $23.6 billion, the current fiscal budget.

This is the administration's third annual budget proposal, and once again the spending plan will not include revenue from legalized slots gambling, a major part of the platform Mr. Ehrlich ran on when he sought the office in 2002.

Mr. Ehrlich and Mr. DiPaula will then have a little more than two months to revise, edit and write a final budget proposal, which must be delivered to lawmakers in Annapolis by Jan. 21.

Mr. DiPaula said the budget will not include any increases in sales and income taxes to bolster the budget.

Mr. Ehrlich, the state's first Republican to hold the office in more than three decades, has promised to reduce the size of government during his gubernatorial campaign.

"This has always been the plan from Day One to undergo an analysis," Mr. Ehrlich said last month. "It has nothing to do with the economy. The taxpayers deserve some efficiency.

Mr. Ehrlich has raised some fees since taking office, but he has also overseen a more than 5 percent reduction in the state's work force.

The Maryland Board of Public Works voted at the end of June to eliminate 361 positions from the state government, though 318 of the positions were unfilled.

The vote came after lawmakers mandated the reductions but allowed agencies and the Board of Public Works, headed by Mr. Ehrlich, to choose which jobs to trim to preserve the state's projected $87 million surplus in fiscal 2005.

That surplus has been rolled over into the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, Mr. DiPaula said.

The state -- which faces a $965 million shortfall in fiscal 2007 -- also is conducting a review, to be concluded in September, that should yield a long list of programs that can be eliminated.

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