ANNAPOLIS — Republican lawmakers in the House of Delegates who presented their own plan for budget cuts last week want to protect what they call “rank-and-file” state employees while trimming “top-heavy” state government.

The GOP House Caucus on Tuesday presented its budget recommendations, which total about $830 million in cuts. Its proposal would eliminate 1,000 positions in higher education and another 500 in the executive branch.

A separate plan was offered Tuesday by two Republican senators and is examined in another story.

Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell, R-Calvert/St. Mary’s, the House minority leader, and Del. Christopher B. Shank, R-Washington, the House minority whip, discussed highlights of their plan Friday afternoon.

House Republicans focused on preventing employee furloughs and balancing the budget without raising taxes. They want to prevent state employee furloughs because they have a corrosive impact on morale, Shank said.

While their plan wouldn’t avoid actually laying off people and they don’t want to minimize the impact it would have on those affected, the state is facing a $2 billion budget deficit, O’Donnell said Friday.

O’Donnell called the proposed employee reductions a “very touch management decision.”

Those state employees actually providing services — Shank listed correctional officers, state roads workers and those working at the Western Maryland Hospital Center — are not the employees that should be cut, Shank and O’Donnell said.

That’s why their plan also cuts state agency budgets by 1 percent across the board and reduces all Office of Secretary budgets by 2 percent.

State employees have been asked to do more, but are not adequately compensated, while they see supervisors who are handsomely rewarded, Shank said.

“This tries to realign those priorities,” he said.

O’Donnell and Shank also defended a measure in their plan that would reduce all executive salaries to $1 below the governor’s salary of $150,000, for an estimated savings of $2.3 million.

“I think plenty of talent out there would love to work for $150,000,” O’Donnell said.

That salary level is more than adequate compensation for public-service jobs that also include overgenerous pension and benefits packages, Shank said.

The current disparity between “rank-and-file” state employees and the higher end is demoralizing and unfair to the majority of the work force, he said.

In a move that O’Donnell admitted Tuesday was symbolic, House Republicans also would cut three chef positions at the governor’s Government House for an estimated savings of $200,000.

The Government House has its own budget, O’Donnell said.

Two other cuts — eliminating government-funded abortions for a savings of $2.1 million and reducing money for stem-cell research by $12.4 million — are both symbolic and fiscally prudent, O’Donnell said.

Eliminating abortion funding mirrors federal policy, and he believes even some who are pro-choice don’t want their tax money going to pay for someone else’s abortion, he said.

A large chunk of the reductions the House Republicans would make — $167 million — results from changing the formula by which school attendance is tracked. They would look at average daily attendance rather than a one-day snapshot, Shank and O’Donnell said.

The one-day snapshot method helps schools with rapid dropout rates, O’Donnell said.

Shank called the method a “fair formula” that would affect Washington County by about $2 million. Figures prepared by the Department of Legislative Services show Shank’s estimate is correct.

In an effort to fairly distribute school funding, the House Caucus also would eliminate Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) funding for schools. Shank called it a “blatantly political formula” passed to placate Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. The GCEI does not benefit Washington County, he said.

Without such measures, Maryland will see massive tax increases after the election this fall, O’Donnell said.

For fiscal year 2011, the House budget plan keeps fund transfers in the governor’s budget, which Republican legislators, including Shank, have criticized in the past.

The plan also would gradually reverse the tax increases adopted during the 2007 special session, according to materials made available to the media.

It would reduce the sales tax rate from 6 percent to 5.5 percent in fiscal year 2014 and to 5 percent in fiscal year 2015. It also would reduce the corporate income tax rate from 8.25 percent to 7 percent in fiscal year 2014 in hopes of spurring job creation.

House Republicans want to freeze the General Fund for one year, fiscal year 2012, then allow gradual increases of 1 percent in 2013 and 2 percent in both 2014 and 2015.

O’Donnell and Shank both said they believe their audience Tuesday was receptive to their ideas.

Del. John P. Donoghue, D-Washington, the Washington County delegation’s lone Democrat, has seen both the House and Senate plans, he said Friday.

“I think every one of their cuts is on the table,” he said. “If there is any time in my decades down here we need that cooperation, it’s now.”

The one strong objection he has is to an item in the plan presented by two senators that would cut University System of Maryland at Hagerstown funding by $1 million, Donoghue said.

As to the House plan, he knows the Appropriations Committee is looking at each of the suggestions, Donoghue said.

Del. Andrew A. Serafini, R-Washington, attended Tuesday’s hearing on the plan.

The ideas put forth Tuesday were very good, but not perfect, and legislators should work together to figure out what makes the most sense and which cuts do the least harm, he said.

“I think this is more an example of how issues should be worked out,” said Serafini, who is leading a Republican caucus study group on state pensions.