Each secretary and their assistants and deputies reported directly to the governor and their chief-of-staff, reflecting the current American federal presidency and presidential cabinet system.

A statewide public school construction program initiative for Baltimore and the 23 counties of Maryland to be equalized and fully funded by the State was undertaken while Mandel was governor.

Accordingly, students in kindergarten or first grade would begin their public education through to high school with equally adequate buildings, supplies and teachers.

Although narrowly rejected by state voters in a 1968 referendum (because of several large controversial proposals), many of the proposed charter's other more generally acceptable provisions and reorganizations were later pushed past the legislature by the new Mandel administration and enacted into law and policy by the voters in several special elections/referendums and the edicts of the Mandel and later Hughes and Schaefer administrations.

Other similar administrative organizations and efficiencies were reflected in the various other departments as they were set up and took shape with the various "administrations", authorities" and "offices" arrayed beneath the state secretaries in the governor's new cabinet, including newer unprecedented departments such as the environment, general services, public safety and correctional services, and natural resources.

In 1972, Mandel selected Philip Kapneck, a local businessman, to start Maryland's International Business efforts by opening an office in Brussels, Belgium.

A year after that, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the final decision, ending the long legal and political saga.

[14] In addition, in 1980, Mandel's administrative aide Maurice R. Wyatt, Maryland District Court Judge Allen B. Spector, and State Health Department director Donald H. Noren were tried and convicted by Judge James Macgill on bribery charges related to payments for land development and septic tank installation moratoriums.

Mandel announced through his press office on July 3, 1973, that he was leaving his wife of 32 years to marry the woman he loved, Jeanne Blackistone Dorsey.

[19] A Fall 2017 issue of his law school's magazine reported that Mandel had since been inducted into the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore Hall of Fame.