Who has Gov. Josh Shapiro nominated for his cupboard? Right here’s the complete listing

Story by Kate Huangpu of Highlight PA and Katie Meyer of Highlight PA

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HARRISBURG — Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed cupboard would assemble folks from throughout the ideological spectrum who have already got expertise at prime ranges of presidency and public service.

The Democrat’s division chairs will preside over the day-to-day operations of state packages that have an effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians — from the Division of Human Providers, which administers meals and medical care help packages, to the Division of State, which oversees the commonwealth’s extremely scrutinized elections.

As in previous administrations, most of the new appointees have lengthy histories with Shapiro. And in step with the brand new governor’s fame as a reasonable and a pragmatist, his selections typically cross partisan traces, and skew towards individuals who have already got held prime state jobs or labored in public administration, relatively than outdoors specialists.

All cupboard appointees have to be authorized by the state Senate, which is managed by Republicans.

Shapiro’s nominees for secretary of basic companies and inspector basic haven’t been introduced but. Right here’s a operating listing of who we find out about to date:

Getting old: Jason Kavulich

Kavulich is from Scranton and has spent most of his profession in Lackawanna County — first working as a county caseworker, then rising to director of the Lackawanna County Space Company on Getting old.

In that function, he oversaw the administration of quality-of-life boosters like native meal supply, coordination of caregivers, and packages like grownup day care, in addition to the investigation of abuse allegations and gave entry to authorized companies.

He additionally labored carefully with the state Division of Getting old. In December, Kavulich and directors in 4 different counties introduced they might take part within the state’s fledgling Shared Housing and Useful resource Alternate Program, or SHARE. Kavulich stated in a press release it will assist cope with “unprecedented challenges in securing reasonably priced housing and in-home help for older adults.”

Agriculture: Russell Redding

Shapiro nominated Redding, the present secretary of agriculture, to return to the place. Redding, who grew up and labored on a dairy farm, has almost a decade of expertise within the function — first for Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell in a two-year stint after which beneath Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf since 2015.

Redding backed the 2019 Pennsylvania Farm Invoice, a $23 million bundle aimed toward bolstering the agriculture trade by offering funding for agricultural disasters and meals security testing services. The invoice has been renewed every subsequent yr.

As secretary, Redding can also be answerable for conservation and sustainability efforts within the agricultural trade.

Redding’s nomination has been lauded by conservation advocacy teams like PennFuture and the Chesapeake Bay Basis.

Banking and Securities: Sarah Hammer

If confirmed, Hammer will be a part of the Shapiro administration through the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton College, the place she works as managing director of the Stevens Heart for Innovation in Finance.

Earlier than that, she spent a yr working in monetary establishment coverage on the U.S. Treasury, based on her LinkedIn. She additionally served on the board of the nonprofit Securities Investor Safety Company, which helps defend traders from shedding cash to failed brokerage corporations.

Hammer spent the sooner a part of her profession at giant monetary companies firms, together with Vanguard, PIMCO, and JP Morgan Chase.

As banking and securities secretary, Hammer can be tasked with overseeing the regulation of state-chartered banks, credit score unions, and belief firms, of which there are greater than 160.

She stated in a press release that she is going to “work to strengthen and improve our client safety efforts whereas guaranteeing the banking and securities trade operates pretty and effectively.”

Group and Financial Improvement: Rick Siger

Siger is at present the chief of workers and senior advisor to the president of Carnegie Mellon College and has labored extensively in politics.

Siger served in the administration of former Democratic Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, and he labored beneath former President Barack Obama as chief of workers on the Workplace of Science and Know-how Coverage and deputy chief of workers on the Division of Commerce. Siger was additionally a member of the”innovation coverage committee” of President Joe Biden’s 2020 marketing campaign and volunteered on his presidential transition.

At CMU, Siger advises the president on neighborhood engagement and financial growth. He beforehand labored as the top of college engagement at Piazza Applied sciences, a social studying platform for college kids and college.

The Division of Group and Financial Improvement is charged with rising the enterprise neighborhood in Pennsylvania, and has an annual price range of over $300 million. If confirmed, Siger will advise Shapiro on coverage concerning job creation, financial growth, and neighborhood engagement.

Conservation and Pure Assets: Cindy Dunn

Dunn already serves as secretary of the Division of Conservation and Pure Assets, and if confirmed, she is going to proceed to be answerable for the upkeep and preservation of the state’s parks and forests.

She’s been doing that work in a method or one other for the previous three a long time.

In 2013, she was CEO and president of PennFuture, an environmental group, the place she labored to preserve Pennsylvania’s pure sources and panorama and advocated towards practices comparable to pure gasoline drilling.

Lots of the environmental conservation organizations that Dunn labored with up to now now commend Shapiro for his appointment, together with PennFuture and the Chesapeake Bay Basis. David Callahan, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition — a company that helps pure gasoline manufacturing in Pennsylvania — has additionally supported Dunn’s reappointment.

Below the Wolf administration, Dunn added 4 new state parks and pledged to have the company completely use renewable vitality by 2030. In 2018, Dunn additionally developed the state’s first local weather change mitigation plan.

Dunn additionally procured a further $220 million funding towards the Clear Streams Fund, which protects the water high quality of rivers and streams in Pennsylvania. One other $100 million from the American Rescue Plan Act went to state parks.

Corrections: Laurel Harry

Harry has labored for Pennsylvania’s Division of Corrections in numerous capacities for twenty-four years, first as a drug and alcohol therapy specialist on the Waynesburg jail. Alongside the way in which, she’s labored in six totally different prisons.

She’s spent the previous decade as superintendent of SCI Camp Hill. Each man who enters the system first passes by that jail for screening earlier than, usually, being moved to a distinct facility.

As secretary, Harry will oversee a system of 23 prisons (and a boot camp) that in recent times has been working to scale back its inhabitants.

Drug and Alcohol Packages: Latika Davis-Jones

Davis-Jones already has direct expertise with drug and alcohol packages.

After working as a drug counselor in Pittsburgh and instructing on the College of Pittsburgh’s College of Social Work, Davis-Jones took over as administrator of Pittsburgh’s Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Providers in 2011. There, she ran packages for folks dwelling with drug and alcohol dependancy, introduced early intervention packages to locations like faculties, and evangelized using naloxone to forestall deadly overdoses.

She appeared earlier than a joint listening to of the state Home and Senate coverage committees in 2016 to share her expertise with the opioid epidemic in Allegheny County. She urged lawmakers to consider dependancy not as an issue that requires “episodic” care, however to decide to “a persistent care and disease-based method.”

Davis-Jones spent greater than 9 years in Allegheny County authorities, then moved into the well being care trade as senior director of behavioral well being at Highmark Wholecare.

Training: Khalid Mumin

Since 2021, Mumin has been superintendent in Decrease Merion, one in all Pennsylvania’s wealthiest public districts, each when it comes to family revenue and per-student spending. However earlier than that, he helmed a really totally different college district, Studying Metropolis, which is likely one of the commonwealth’s poorest.

As Studying superintendent, Mumin spoke to The Inquirer about long-standing funding inequities at Pennsylvania faculties, significantly city ones. He stated his purpose was “to make sure we’re giving our youngsters the identical alternatives the suburban youngsters have.”

Mumin additionally vocally supported placing cash into PlanCon, a state program that reimburses districts for building tasks, telling native information station WFMZ it’s obligatory “particularly for varsity districts like Studying College District, with outdated infrastructure, stunning buildings however want a variety of work.” It hasn’t been funded since a 2015 price range battle and is taking no new candidates.

Earlier than his tenure at Studying, Mumin was superintendent in Caroline County, Maryland, and labored for faculties in Bucks, Lancaster, and York Counties.

As training secretary, Mumin shall be answerable for monitoring college operations and making suggestions — earlier secretaries have, as an example, pushed for extra constitution college oversight. He additionally will decide state training requirements and guarantee faculties meet them, in addition to set up the best way to greatest consider academics.

Emergency Administration: Randy Padfield

Padfield has led the Pennsylvania Emergency Administration Company since 2019. He’s answerable for coordinating the commonwealth’s responses to disasters starting from floods to fires to shootings.

He performed a outstanding function within the commonwealth’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which concerned speaking with the federal authorities to request that army models be deployed to bolster first responders’ presence in locations like nursing properties.

Padfield was the company’s deputy director earlier than his promotion. His different credentials embrace directing a public security coaching middle at Harrisburg Space Group School, working as a important care flight paramedic, and serving on Pennsylvania’s all-hazards incident administration workforce.

Environmental Safety: Wealthy Negrin

Negrin, an legal professional of Cuban descent, can be the first Latino secretary of the Division of Environmental Safety. He has labored extensively within the personal, public, and nonprofit sectors.

DEP’s secretary is answerable for implementing environmental legal guidelines, issuing grants for environmentally pleasant tasks, releasing stories, and monitoring potential hazards like deserted wells.

Negrin’s expertise in purely environmental points has to date been restricted, although reception to his nomination has been optimistic amongst environmental teams. Former DEP Secretary David Hess stated what the workplace actually wants is somebody who’s “good at managing.”

“You could have engineers and biologists and chemists and different workers on the company to fill in particulars and recommend coverage instructions, nevertheless it’s nonetheless as much as the secretary to make selections,” Hess stated.

Negrin is maybe greatest identified in Pennsylvania for his tenure in Philadelphia politics, when he first labored as government director of the Board of Revision of Taxes, then served as deputy mayor and metropolis managing director.

He ran unsuccessfully for Philly district legal professional in 2017, successful assist from town’s police union. In accordance with Philly Magazine, he argued that his formative experiences with violence allowed him to speak to doubtlessly struggling younger folks “and say, ‘Me too.’” When Negrin was 13, he witnessed his father’s homicide by the hands of an anti-Castro paramilitary group.

Hearth: Thomas Cook dinner

Cook dinner, who’s already appearing fireplace commissioner, beforehand served as assistant commissioner and was an administrator on the Pennsylvania State Hearth Academy, which oversees the state’s firefighter coaching program.

He was beforehand assistant fireplace chief for Pittsburgh, overseeing every day operations within the metropolis’s 700-member division.

If confirmed, Cook dinner will proceed working to develop statewide emergency coaching packages and can oversee the commonwealth’s Hearth and Emergency Medical Providers Mortgage Program, which provides low-interest loans to volunteer fireplace and emergency companies organizations.

He’ll additionally work carefully with Pennsylvania’s greater than 2,000 native fireplace departments on points like recruitment and coaching.

Well being: Debra Bogen

Bogen, a pediatrician, rose to prominence in 2020 when she turned Allegheny County’s well being division director and led the county’s response to the pandemic. As Pennsylvania’s prime public well being official, she can be answerable for statewide well being initiatives and laws.

In her Allegheny County function, Bogen tracked information on an infection charges, stored the county knowledgeable on the latest variants, and advocated for fairness in COVID-19 testing and vaccine entry. She additionally procured a federal grant that allowed elevated opioid surveillance and piloted at-home sexually transmitted illness testing for residents.

Previous to coming into public workplace, Bogen was a professor on the College of Pittsburgh, the place she taught pediatrics and psychiatry. She based the Mid-Atlantic Moms’ Milk Financial institution, a company that collects and supplies donated human milk to medically susceptible infants and youngsters.

Human Providers: Val Arkoosh

Arkoosh is an anesthesiologist who has expertise in politics and a protracted relationship with Shapiro.

She served on the Montgomery County well being board throughout Shapiro’s tenure as county commissioner, and when a emptiness opened in 2015, she joined the Board of Commissioners. Shapiro’s affect was instrumental in her appointment.

When Shapiro left county authorities to run for state legal professional basic, Arkoosh took over his function as chair of the board. She was the primary lady to guide the county.

She ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Home in 2014 and U.S. Senate in 2022.

Earlier than her entry into politics, Arkoosh headed the nonprofit Nationwide Physicians Alliance and advocated for the passage of the Reasonably priced Care Act.

If confirmed, Arkoosh will chair an enormous division that administers lots of Pennsylvania’s largest entitlement packages. It’s answerable for meals help, the state Medicaid program, and licensing a slew of county-level packages coping with companies like psychological well being and baby welfare.

Insurance coverage: Mike Humphreys

The Pennsylvania Insurance coverage Division is tasked with regulating the insurance coverage market within the commonwealth, monitoring firms’ funds, and educating folks on the typically sophisticated system.

Wolf named Humphreys, who spent three years working as a chief of workers within the division, the appearing insurance coverage commissioner in early 2022. Earlier than that, Humphreys labored as Tennessee’s assistant commissioner for insurance coverage, and for the Nationwide Convention of Insurance coverage Legislators.

As appearing commissioner, Humphreys inherited the duty of implementing the federal No Surprises Act, which took impact in 2022 and protects sufferers from shock medical payments. As a part of that work, the Insurance coverage Division has a workforce tasked with investigating payments submitted by sufferers.

Labor and Business: Nancy Walker

The secretary of the Division of Labor and Business oversees the state’s unemployment and staff’ compensation packages, takes labor regulation complaints, and coordinates job coaching alternatives.

In 2017, Shapiro tapped Walker, a longtime labor lawyer, to lead the newly created Truthful Labor Part of the Workplace of Lawyer Basic. One in all her main duties was to carry fits towards employers accused of employee mistreatment, like deliberate underpayment.

Throughout her tenure, she was concerned in a go well with that noticed a big building firm that’s continuously awarded state contracts take a plea deal after being accused of misusing cash supposed for employee advantages. The corporate paid out greater than $20 million to over 1,000 staff.

Walker additionally helped carry instances on employee misclassification, wherein an employer wrongly classifies a employee as, as an example, an impartial contractor to keep away from paying advantages. She testified earlier than the state Senate on that work, calling misclassification “one of the crucial widespread, urgent issues dealing with Pennsylvania’s workforce.”

In a assertion, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO known as Walker “a champion for working folks and an important buddy of the labor motion.”

Navy and Veterans Affairs: Mark Schindler

Schindler has served as adjutant basic since late 2020. In that function, he oversees the Division of Navy and Veterans Affairs, commanding greater than 18,000 members of Pennsylvania’s Army and Air Nationwide Guard, in addition to different commonwealth staff.

The DMVA additionally administers packages for veterans and 6 state-owned properties for veterans.

Schindler has spent a lot of his profession in Pennsylvania Army Nationwide Guard management, and has held roles together with assistant adjutant basic and chief of workers. He deployed to Jordan from 2012 to 2013 as a commander.

Income: Pat Browne

Browne’s nomination follows two main developments in Shapiro’s picks: selecting folks with authorities expertise, in addition to holding the cupboard bipartisan.

For many years, Browne, a Republican, represented the Allentown space within the state legislature. He was elected to the state Home in 1995 and gained a state Senate seat in 2005. He turned an establishment within the higher chamber, serving as majority chair of the highly effective Appropriations Committee from 2015 till 2022. He misplaced his seat final yr in an especially shut main election.

The appropriations committee is answerable for reviewing any invoice that might have a fiscal affect on the commonwealth and reporting that affect to members. Brown simply utilized his background as an authorized public accountant to the function, gaining a fame round Harrisburg for advanced explanations of price range math.

Browne was also called a key determine in negotiating these budgets, and for ensuring his district acquired a slice of the pie. One in all his largest accomplishments as a senator was writing the regulation that created the neighborhood enchancment zone program, a tax incentive scheme for metropolis growth for which solely Allentown qualifies.

After doling out a flurry of grants and different state funds to Lehigh Valley organizations in his last months in workplace, he advised native public radio station WLVR, “I had the flexibility to provide for our area an quantity that was in all probability extra vital than most. I used to be proud to do it.”

If confirmed, Browne will oversee the processing of state tax returns, tax income assortment and distribution, and the operation of the Pennsylvania Lottery.

State: Al Schmidt

Schmidt, a Republican who has for the previous yr helmed the good-government group Committee of Seventy, is greatest identified for his work as a Philadelphia metropolis commissioner.

Schmidt rose to nationwide prominence throughout the 2020 presidential election, wherein gradual vote counting in Pennsylvania — and particularly in Philadelphia — contributed to delayed outcomes and gave rise to a number of conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud.

>>READ MORE: Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro faucets Trump goal Al Schmidt to be Pa.’s prime election official

Schmidt was elected to the three-member Philly board of commissioners in 2011 as a reformer, pledging to tackle machine politics and enhance transparency.

A few of that work was attention-grabbing, like Schmidt’s 2012 anecdotal report on voting irregularities in Philly, which brought about a political firestorm on the time. Schmidt additionally flagged a voter registration glitch that was main noncitizens to mistakenly get on the rolls.

However Schmidt has additionally tried to carry himself aside from politics regardless of his politically charged workplace. Early in his tenure, as an example, he averted taking a public place on Pennsylvania’s then-new — and since overturned — voter ID regulation, telling WHYY, “I wasn’t elected into this workplace to have opinions on the legal guidelines.”

He has pledged to run statewide elections in a nonpartisan method, saying in a press release that he appears ahead to “working with anybody — no matter occasion — to make sure [elections] stay free and truthful right here in Pennsylvania.”

State Police: Christopher Paris

Paris has been with the Pennsylvania State Police since 1999, working in two extraordinarily totally different troops alongside the way in which: Troop Ok, which covers one of many densest components of the state in Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties; and Troop R, which incorporates largely rural Lackawanna, Pike, Susquehanna, and Wayne Counties.

He’s additionally served within the company’s Bureau of Coaching and Training, the PSP self-discipline workplace, and at division headquarters.

He holds a regulation diploma and is an energetic member of the Pennsylvania Bar.

Pennsylvania State Police patrol roads and have jurisdiction throughout the commonwealth, and likewise present half or full-time police protection in a majority of municipalities — primarily rural ones that both have by no means had their very own police division or have defunded it.

Transportation: Michael Carroll

Caroll spent 16 years within the state Home, serving as Democratic chair of the Transportation Committee for 4 of these years. Throughout his time on the committee, Carroll championed a coverage that elevated the minimal penalty for leaving the scene of a deadly hit-and-run automotive crash from one yr to a few, also called Kevin’s Regulation. The measure handed with bipartisan assist.

He has already come out with coverage positions, saying that cash from the state’s Motor License Fund ought to now not be diverted from its function — sustaining roads and bridges — to fund State Police. The difficulty has been a perennial debate subject in Harrisburg.

If confirmed, Carroll’s tasks will embrace overseeing the development and upkeep of roads, supervising mass transit, and licensing motor automobiles.

Highlight PA’s Stephen Caruso contributed reporting.

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