Mayor Cherelle Parker just made 10 appointments, but some top jobs remain up in the air a month into her tenure

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Thursday announced 10 appointments to senior roles in her administration, including tapping a new chief integrity officer and retaining a former deputy mayor to oversee departments that deal with children and families.

But a month into her administration, Parker has yet to name commissioners to head a vast majority of the city’s operational agencies, including the Department of Licenses and Inspections, the Health Department, and the Department of Human Services.

As a result, the city has largely been run by holdovers from former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration since the start of the year.

When measles began spreading in Philly hospitals, Kenney’s health commissioner led the response. When state leaders announced almost $25 million in federal funding for water infrastructure projects, Kenney’s water commissioner accepted the ceremonial check. And when back-to-back snowstorms blanketed Philly, Kenney’s streets commissioner oversaw the plowing operation.

While some employees have privately expressed frustration at the pace of hiring, the administration contends that city services have not been disrupted during the transition. Parker has touted her rigorous search and vetting process, and she has been open about the fact that she largely waited until she won the November election to build her administration.

“We’re being purposeful and deliberate with our decisions, because it’s vitally important to me and my senior team that we put the right people in the right positions to best serve our customers — the citizens of Philadelphia,” she said in a statement.

Parker made the announcements Thursday amid a busy two-week stretch that’s included the start of a new City Council term, a speech about the future of public education, and two shootings that left police officers wounded, including one in which police killed a 28-year-old man. Sources said a handful of additional appointments are expected next week, including the city representative and the head of the Streets Department.

» READ MORE: Familiar faces and an unusual structure: How Cherelle Parker is shaping her mayoral administration

Most of the appointments that Parker has announced have been for administrative roles or political appointees at the top of her administration, such as her “big three” top aides: Chief of Staff Tiffany W. Thurman, and Chief Deputy Mayors Sinceré Harris and Aren Platt. Some others have been for newly created positions that correspond to Parker’s campaign promises.

Only three of her appointments have been for heads of the operational departments that deliver core services.

In the first week of her administration, Parker appointed Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and Acting Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy. Murphy, though, is only serving temporarily and is set to retire this year. He was elevated as a stopgap because Parker tapped Kenney’s fire commissioner, Adam K. Thiel, to be her managing director.

On Thursday, she announced that Dominick Mireles, Kenney’s director of the Office of Emergency Management, will continue in that role.

The leaders of more than 15 other agencies, including the Free Library and the Streets and Sanitation Department, are yet to be determined.

Parker said in December that she would take her time filling out her administration.

“No one will bully us into thinking that we will be forced to make a decision until we know it is right for our vision, it is right for our chemistry, it is right for the people of our city, and our team,” Parker said in December. “We are not trying to rush to get it done fast.”

Parker is using a rigorous search and vetting process with multiple stages of interviews — a process she did not fully launch until fall of last year. Her most recent predecessors dove into hiring decisions soon after winning the spring Democratic primary.

Parker had publicly named 17 senior staff members prior to Thursday. Kenney, meanwhile, named two dozen appointees before he even took office, including tapping commissioners to head key departments.

Kenney’s administration conducted national searches for several roles, including fire commissioner, that stretched through February, and retained commissioners in “acting” capacities until the searches were complete.

Former Mayor Michael A. Nutter also named about a dozen appointees before taking office, then announced 36 senior staff appointments six days after he was inaugurated.

Philadelphia lobbyist Mustafa Rashed said Parker’s deliberate decision-making process is part of her political brand.

“People that know the mayor for a long time,” he said, “they will tell you that every decision the mayor approaches this way.”

And Rashed, whose firm Bellevue Strategies had several employees serve on Parker’s transition committees, stressed that the slow pace of hiring was a matter of palace intrigue that would not impact city residents.

“Trash gets picked up. Snow got picked up,” he said. “So from the outside looking in, everyone who needs to do those jobs were there. Certainly there’s been no cut or diminished services.”

But many in City Hall are starting to itch for clarity about their future. One staff member, who spoke to The Inquirer on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, said Parker’s transition committee asked employees in December to share their qualifications and to indicate if they’d like to remain in their position.

The staff member did so, but never heard back.

They said some employees are “overworked” because other positions in their offices haven’t been filled. Others, concerned about job security, are looking for employment elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the process for drafting next year’s city budget has already begun, but many of the department heads involved in drafting their agencies’ spending proposals don’t know if they’ll be there when the next budget takes effect in July.

That has created an awkward situation for City Council members and staff, who have begun meeting with some agency heads about their budget plans because they don’t know who will be in those positions during budget negotiations this spring, let alone next year.

Several of the roles Parker announced Thursday are new to her administration and signal how she intends to reshape city government. They include:

Others hires filled roles that existed under former mayors, including:

And two of the people Parker appointed Thursday were retained from Kenney’s administration. They are: