Mayor's Cabinet and Offices

The Mayor's Cabinet and Offices are the senior officials who carry out the mayor's policies. Unlike many state governments, Philadelphia has no single statute listing every cabinet post; the Charter names a few core officers, and the rest of the structure comes from the Philadelphia Code and from executive orders that mayors adopt and revise. Rosters change often, so readers should check phila.gov for current names.^[1]

1 Charter-created posts

The Home Rule Charter establishes the Managing Director, the Finance Director (see Finance Department), the City Solicitor (see Law Department), and the City Representative role, among others, and sets up departments for services such as police, fire, public health, streets and licenses. The mayor appoints each of these officials. The Chief Administrative Officer oversees administrative support units. A Chief of Staff and policy advisers work directly in the mayor's office.

2 Operating departments

Departments are grouped by function. Public safety includes the Police Department and Fire Department. Health and human services include Public Health, Human Services and Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. Infrastructure and land use include Streets, Water, Licenses and Inspections, and Planning and Development. Support functions include Procurement, Human Resources, Innovation and Technology, and Revenue. Many departments are overseen by the Managing Director; the Police Commissioner and some other heads report closer to the mayor.

3 Mayoral offices

Alongside departments, mayors create offices by executive order to advance priorities, usually housed within the Managing Director's or mayor's portfolio. Examples relevant to this wiki include the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Office of LGBT Affairs, Office for People with Disabilities, Office of Sustainability, Office of Violence Prevention and Office of Worker Protections. Executive orders can be amended or revoked by the next mayor, so these offices are less permanent than Charter departments, though some have since been written into the Code by Council. Council has also created some offices by ordinance, which a mayor cannot unilaterally eliminate.

4 Boards and the civil service

Mayors appoint members to many boards and commissions, such as the Board of Education, the Civil Service Commission (through a nominating panel), the Historical Commission and the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Most non-cabinet city employees are covered by the merit system or collective bargaining agreements, which limits direct political control over their jobs.

Two features of the structure are worth keeping in mind. First, the cabinet is not the whole executive branch: the elected row offices, the Civil Service Commission and state-created authorities such as SEPTA sit outside the mayor's chain of command even when the mayor appoints some of their board members. Second, because the mayor can reorganize by executive order, the same function may sit under different offices in different administrations, so a resident looking for help is often better served by calling Philly311 or checking the current department directory at phila.gov than by relying on an older organization chart. For the Managing Director's portfolio, see Managing Director's Office.

5 Changes and turnover

New mayors typically reshape the cabinet at the start of a term and again as appointees leave. On July 28, 2026, the administration announced that Managing Director Adam Thiel was leaving and that Carlton Williams would succeed him, part of a wider cabinet shuffle that WHYY reported also included a new city solicitor. The Inquirer reported in August 2026 that Mayor Parker has seen higher turnover among her top appointees than her recent predecessors.^[2] Because departments can be merged or renamed (for example, the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability), the roster on phila.gov should be treated as authoritative.

See also: Mayor of Philadelphia, How Philadelphia Government Is Organized, Open Data and Transparency Tools.

References

1. Philadelphia Home Rule Charter and Philadelphia Code; City of Philadelphia department directory (phila.gov).
2. WHYY, "Philadelphia Managing Director Adam Thiel steps down as Parker's administration undergoes staffing shuffle" (2026).
3. Billy Penn, "How Philly works: a look at the city's governance," December 1, 2025.
4. Philadelphia Inquirer, "Mayor Parker has seen higher turnover among her top appointees than her recent predecessors" (August 20, 2026); WHYY, "New managing director, city solicitor among Philly cabinet changes" (July 28, 2026).