Government Structure

How the city-county government is built: Mayor, Council, row offices, charter, and the state and federal layers above it.

Articles (20)

• Philadelphia Overview — A plain-English orientation to Philadelphia as a consolidated city and county: who governs, how decisions are made, and where the city's power comes from and stops.
• Philadelphia Home Rule Charter — The 1951 charter that replaced the machine-era city government with a strong mayor, a 17-member Council, a civil service system and independent watchdogs.
• City-County Consolidation — How the 1854 Act of Consolidation merged Philadelphia city and county into one government, and what remains of the old county structure today.
• How Philadelphia Government Is Organized — A map of Philadelphia's executive branch, Council, row offices, courts, authorities and state and federal overlays, with pointers to each wiki article.
• Mayor of Philadelphia — The city's chief executive: powers under the Home Rule Charter, appointment authority, budget role, veto, term limits and the current officeholder.
• Managing Director's Office — The Charter-created office that supervises most of Philadelphia's service departments, from streets and fire to health, prisons and libraries.
• Mayor's Cabinet and Offices — How the mayor's cabinet, senior staff and mayoral offices are organized, which posts the Charter creates, and where to find the current roster.
• Philadelphia City Council — The 17-member legislature of Philadelphia: how seats are filled, who leads it, what it can and cannot do, and how residents can reach it.
• Council Committees and the Legislative Process — How a bill becomes a Philadelphia ordinance: introduction, committee referral, hearings, votes, mayoral action, and how residents can participate.
• Councilmanic Prerogative — The unwritten Philadelphia custom by which district Council members control land-use decisions in their districts, and the debate over it.
• Home Rule Limits and State Preemption — Where Pennsylvania law stops Philadelphia from acting on its own: taxes, firearms, and other fields where state statutes override local ordinances.
• Pennsylvania State Government and Philadelphia — How the General Assembly, governor, state courts and agencies shape Philadelphia's budget, schools, transit, courts and legal powers.
• Federal Government and Philadelphia — How federal grants, courts, law enforcement and immigration policy interact with Philadelphia's city government, including sanctuary-policy disputes.
• Philadelphia Row Offices — The independently elected offices that survive from county government in Philadelphia: Controller, District Attorney, Sheriff, City Commissioners and Register of Wills.
• City Controller — Philadelphia's independently elected auditor: what the Controller audits, pre-audits and reports on, who holds the office, and how to report fraud.
• Philadelphia District Attorney's Office — The county prosecutor for Philadelphia: structure, leadership under Larry Krasner, the Conviction Integrity Unit, the 2022 impeachment fight and how residents interact with it.
• Philadelphia Sheriff's Office — The elected Sheriff's role in court security, prisoner transport, serving court orders and sheriff sales, and the 2026 audit and court-supervision dispute.
• City Commissioners — The three elected officials who run voter registration and elections in Philadelphia as the county board of elections, and how residents work with them.
• Register of Wills and Clerk of Orphans' Court — The elected office that probates wills, grants letters of administration, issues marriage licenses and serves as clerk of the Orphans' Court Division in Philadelphia.
• Civil Service Commission — The Charter-created panel that hears city employee appeals, approves civil service regulations and pay plans, and rules on exemptions and residency waivers.

See also the Department Directory, the full index and the Main Page.