North Carolina Cabinet

The Cabinet is the group of unelected heads of the executive departments of the North Carolina government. It is separate and distinct from the North Carolina Council of State, the members of which are elected statewide, and which makes up the rest of the executive leadership of the government. All cabinet secretaries are appointed by the Governor.

The Cabinet's size decreased by two on Jan. 1, 2012, when three Cabinet-level agencies, the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, the North Carolina Department of Correction and the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, were merged to become the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.^[1]

The Cabinet then expanded by two secretaries in 2015, with the creation of two new Departments: Information Technology and Military and Veterans Affairs.^[2]

Current members

• Secretary of Administration: Bill Daughtridge
• Secretary of Commerce: John Skvarla
• Secretary of Environmental Quality: Donald van der Vaart^[3]
• Secretary of Health and Human Services: Rick Brajer^[4]
• Chief Information Officer, Department of Information Technology: Keith Werner^[5][6]
• Secretary of Military and Veterans Affairs: Cornell A. Wilson, Jr.^[5]
• Secretary of Natural & Cultural Resources: Susan Kluttz
• Secretary of Public Safety: Frank L. Perry^[7]
• Secretary of Revenue: Jeff Epstein^[8]
• Secretary of Transportation: Nick Tennyson^[9]

Governor Pat McCrory announced his initial Cabinet members before he took office on January 5, 2013, and he swore them into office the same day as his inauguration.^{[10] [11] [12]}

McCrory also named senior officials who are not Cabinet "Secretaries," but hold posts with a similar rank as Cabinet officials:

• Chief of Staff: Thomas Stith
• Director of the Office of State Human Resources: Neal Alexander
• Budget Director: Andrew Heath^[8]

References

1. Winston-Salem Journal
2. News & Observer
3. News & Observer
4. Secretary Rick Brajer takes oath of office
5. Governor McCrory Announces New Cabinet Members
6. News & Observer: NC's cabinet-level IT chief will return to private sector
7. News & Observer Under the Dome
8. WNCN
9. McCrory names Tennyson new Secretary of NCDOT
10. Huffman, Dane (3 January 2013). "McCrory names Tony Tata to his cabinet". NBC17.com. Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
11. Cabinet Swearing-in ceremony
12. Customer Service a McCrory admin. focus

• News & Observer: Who serves in the governor's cabinet? (2008)
• News & Observer: Get to know the cabinet (2009)