Employment; Personnel; Governor; State Employees; Government Employees
North Carolina bill would shift 425 jobs out of civil service
North Carolina state employees could lose job protections for 425 policy and management jobs if lawmakers advance the bill. Other statewide elected officials would get smaller exemption pools, and workers would get 10 working days' written notice.
North Carolina lawmakers are weighing a bill that would let the governor move 425 jobs outside the ordinary personnel system. The measure also gives other statewide elected officials their own exemption pools. Workers would get 10 working days’ written notice before a reclassification.
- The governor could designate 425 exempt state jobs.
- Other statewide elected officials could each carve out smaller exempt pools.
- Workers would get 10 working days’ written notice before a reclassification.
- The change would move jobs out of the ordinary personnel system.
- For state employees in North Carolina, the fight is over who gets to decide whether a job stays protected or becomes politically exempt
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.