Wilmington city manager explains staff departures and restructuring

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WWAY) — As she approaches her first anniversary as Wilmington’s city manager, Becky Hawke says a major staff reorganization implemented earlier this year was designed to improve efficiency and was not connected to the departure of several high-profile city employees.

“It’s been a lot of work, but in a good way,” Hawke said while reflecting on her first year in the position. Tuesday marks one year since she officially took office.

Hawke said her role has involved balancing a wide range of issues while keeping the city focused on long-term goals established by the Wilmington City Council.

“You always start with council’s vision, so what is that overarching vision for the community and where are we trying to go?” Hawke said.

One of the priorities discussed during Hawke’s interview process was improving efficiency through a reorganization of city staff. The restructuring plan was implemented in March.

“Related to the realignment, one of our absolute non-negotiables was that nobody loses their job,” Hawke said.

The reorganization occurred around the same time several senior city employees left their positions, including the deputy city manager, the human resources director and two leaders within the city’s trash and recycling division.

Hawke said those departures were unrelated to the restructuring effort.

“Anybody who no longer works for the city–that had nothing to do with these changes that we were making to our organizational structure, so we want to completely separate those two,” Hawke said. “I realize the timing — it’s natural for people to put them together.”

According to Hawke, the city did not eliminate occupied positions as part of the restructuring. Instead, vacant positions were removed or their responsibilities were absorbed into other roles.

The reorganization combined the city’s budget and finance departments, created a new assistant city manager position and moved communications and human resources under the supervision of Chief of Staff Dennis LaCaria, who joined the city in October 2025.

“The concept of having a chief of staff was one that had been floating around long before I ever got here,” Hawke said.

LaCaria’s $195,000 salary has drawn public scrutiny as the city moves forward with a budget exceeding $350 million.

Hawke said the compensation is in line with similar positions in comparable organizations.

“So we definitely recognize that is one of the small percentages of the higher end salaries that we have in the organization, but it is not remotely reflective of why we’re trying to have a budget increase or trying to adjust salaries,” Hawke said.

Tune into WWAY News on Thursday to hear Hawke discuss the city’s new $350 million budget which includes a tax increase.