NORTH CAROLINA STATE GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE

NORTH CAROLINA STATE GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE

North Carolina State Government is divided into three main branches—the Legislative Branch, which consists of our lawmaking body, the North Carolina General Assembly; the Judicial Branch, which houses our state court system; and the Executive Branch, made up of the state departments and agencies that carry out our laws, headed by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

The Judicial Branch

The North Carolina court system has five levels of courts, starting with the Magistrates’ Offices, and ending with the North Carolina Supreme Court.

The Appellate Division includes the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. These high courts review trial court decisions in which a party claims the judge made an error applying the law.
The Trial division includes the Superior and District Courts, which handle all trials, both civil and criminal. These courts handle more than 2.8 million cases a year in North Carolina.
Court officials include Clerks of Court, District Attorneys, Magistrates, and Public Defenders. These elected or appointed officials play crucial roles in the processing of cases and the disposition of justice.

The Legislative Branch

The North Carolina General Assembly has two houses, the 50-member Senate and the 120-member House of Representatives. The legislature meets annually and all members are elected for two-year terms.

Many of our legislators represent districts that have been severely impacted by natural hazards. From east to west, every region in the state is subject to some type of natural hazard. We have experienced many hurricanes over the years, including Hurricane Fran, which ravaged much of the state in 1996 with its high winds reaching far inland; and Hurricane Floyd, which devastated much of eastern North Carolina in 1999 with its high flood waters. Most recently, Hurricane Irene devastated sound-side communities throughout Eastern North Carolina. In addition to hurricanes, we have seen riverine floods in the Piedmont, and flash floods and landslides in the mountains. Thousands of utility customers all over the State have been forced to live for days without power following severe winter storms, and farmers and municipalities have been left with inadequate water supplies during our long droughts. Wildfires have burned acres of North Carolina forestland, and tornadoes have ripped through many towns. Families have been made homeless, businesses have closed, farms have ceased operations, and whole communities have lost their essential character and sense of place. Many of these disaster victims have become vocal constituents, and the media has consistently brought their stories to the attention of the public. Our elected leaders are full aware of the suffering and hardship that can be caused by natural disasters in our State. And slowly, our lawmakers are becoming more aware of the role that the General Assembly can take in protecting North Carolina citizens from these inevitable and recurring natural hazards.
In the 2000 Session, the General Assembly overwhelmingly passed the Flood Hazard Prevention Act, which authorizes local governments to prohibit landfills, hazardous waste management facilities, junkyards, and chemical storage facilities in the 100-year floodplain. Although this legislation enhances the capabilities of local jurisdictions to regulate hazardous uses in their flood hazard areas, the legislation as it was originally introduced was much stronger, and tied state funding for water and sewer infrastructure, as well as disaster relief, to the existence of local floodplain ordinances that would not only prohibit certain uses in the floodplain, but would also establish a two-foot freeboard requirement for all new construction in the floodplain. Although critics have characterized the floodplain bill as a weakened law that contained neither “carrots” nor “sticks,” others have justified the actions of the General Assembly by pointing out that the two-foot freeboard requirement was arbitrary given the out-of-date condition of the majority of the state’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). As a silver lining to the failed passage of a stricter floodplain management bill, the State has engaged in an aggressive effort to re-map all North Carolina communities using a river basin approach—the Floodplain Mapping Program (described in the discussion of the Division of Emergency Management of the Department of Public Safety). It is hoped that the General Assembly will continue to prove its commitment to the Floodplain Mapping Program with further appropriations as needed to get the job done.
In June of 2001, the North Carolina General Assembly passed Senate Bill 300: An Act to Amend the Laws Regarding Emergency Management as Recommended by the Legislative Disaster Response and Recovery Commission. This bill was subsequently updated in 2011, though no major changes were included. Among other provisions, this bill requires that local governments have an approved hazard mitigation plan in order to receive state public assistance funds (effective for state-declared disasters after November 1, 2004). The Bill also requires that communities be participants in good standing in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to receive public assistance for flood-related damage. It is clear that the legislature understood the importance of mitigation planning at the local level when it passed this bill.
One major achievement that took place in 2012 was the passage of an amendment to the state’s building code which required 1 foot of freeboard above the base flood elevation for all structures. The hope is that this regulation will provide a sort of bonus protection above and beyond the predicted base flood elevation, especially in the case of any major storm event.
While the level of awareness is growing among our lawmakers, state agencies with special knowledge of natural hazards and mitigation possibilities (such as the Division of Emergency Management) must continue to find ways to educate and enlighten the legislature. Completion of the State Hazard Mitigation Plan will contribute to the effort to heighten the awareness of elected representatives about the extent of the State’s hazard risk and also to inform them of mitigation strategies and activities that can be undertaken to reduce those risks. It is hoped that the General Assembly will pay heed to the essential need to engage in hazard mitigation now to avoid disaster losses in the future.

The Executive Branch

All agencies of the Executive Branch are grouped into sixteen departments plus the Office of the Governor and the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and eight of the department heads are elected for four-year terms. The remaining department heads are appointed by the Governor.

The eight departments with elected department heads are the Departments of Agriculture, Insurance, Justice, Labor, Public Instruction, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, and the Office of the State Auditor.
The departments with appointed department heads are the Departments of Administration, Commerce, Cultural Resources, Environment and Natural Resources, Health and Human Services, Public Safety, Revenue, Transportation.
The Governor and the other elected officials of the Executive Branch form the Council of State. The heads of the other executive departments, “Secretaries,” are appointed by the Governor and serve at his pleasure.
Additional information on the structure of North Carolina is housed within our Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) documentation which can be provided upon further request.

Directory: div
div -> 9th May 1950 the schuman declaration
div -> Supplemental demographic information
div -> Introduction A. Purpose & Authority
div -> This section includes changes made during the 2013 update
div -> General occupational safety and health rules subdivision z toxic and hazardous substances
div -> Computer Basics What is a computer
div -> Mobile county, alabama regular board meeting
div -> Privacy: Campus Living & Technology

Download 1 Mb.

Share with your friends: