Daniels appoints next budget director

INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov.-elect Mitch Daniels named the chief executive of a group that promotes pharmaceutical and medical devices companies as his administration's state budget director Tuesday.\nAs Daniels' first appointment since he defeated Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan on Nov. 2, Charles E. Schalliol will help craft the state's next two-year budget and try to close the state's nearly $800 million deficit.\nSchalliol will replace former lawmaker Marilyn Schultz, who has headed up the bipartisan State Budget Agency for the late Gov. Frank O'Bannon and Gov. Joe Kernan.\n"We won't make a more important appointment," Daniels said in a prepared statement, saying that his administration has "an immediate fiscal emergency to address."\nPrior to Tuesday's announcement, Schalliol, 56, told members of the BioCrossroads' board that he had accepted the position of director of the Office of Management and Budget. He assumes the post Jan. 10, the day Daniels will be sworn in.\nSchalliol is president and chief executive of BioCrossroads, a public-private life sciences initiative that promotes high-tech jobs in central Indiana.\nHe spent most of his career as an executive with Eli Lilly and Company, the pharmaceutical giant that Daniels also worked for prior to becoming White House budget director for President Bush.\nAt BioCrossroads, Schalliol led an organization with a two-year budget of $8 million to $10 million and a four-person staff. He became the group's chief executive on April 1.