North Carolina bill would shift 425 jobs out of civil service

For North Carolina state employees, the question is which jobs stay in the civil service system and which can be made politically exempt. The proposal would let the governor designate 425 exempt policymaking and managerial positions across named departments and offices, moving those posts outside the usual personnel system.

The bill would also give other statewide elected officials authority to carve out their own exempt pools. In those offices, they could designate up to 25 exempt policymaking positions or 2% of full-time staff, whichever is greater, and the same for managerial positions, with some exceptions.

Who gets to make the carve-outs

The proposal frames itself as a decentralized human resources system, where appropriate, under the governor’s direction. But the practical effect is to widen the space for top officials to treat more jobs like management or policy posts instead of ordinary career positions.

That matters because exempt status changes the balance of power inside state government. The people holding those jobs can be more directly tied to the priorities of the office they serve, and the manager on top gets more room to place, move and reshape the work.

What changes for workers

The bill does build in one clear warning for employees: 10 working days’ prior written notice before anyone is placed in an exempt policymaking or managerial role. That gives workers a short runway, but it does not preserve the same job protections that come with regular classified positions.

For the people affected, the shift is not abstract. It can change who supervises them, how they are hired and how secure the job feels once it has been pulled into an exempt category.