PROVIDENCE — Governor Carcieri is losing another high-profile member of his Cabinet: Jerome F. Williams, the $143,011-a-year director of the state Department of Administration since March.

In a brief interview yesterday, Williams, 54, said he didn’t go looking for another job, but could not say no when he was offered a chance to become the senior vice president and chief business and administration officer at Roger Williams University, in Bristol. He will leave state government, where he has worked on and off for 19½ years, on Feb. 2.

After years as a deputy state treasurer, second in command at the Department of Administration — and a short-lived stint as director of the state Department of Transportation during a year of upheaval that included the suspension of the chief engineer and the opening of the Iway, Williams was a natural to succeed former Department of Administration Director Beverly Najarian when she stepped aside last spring to become the governor’s deputy chief of staff.

There is no obvious heir apparent now, with several relative newcomers to state government working directly under Williams, at the epicenter of the state budget crisis. The Department of Administration is responsible for hiring and spending and devising a plan for averting a projected $357-million deficit in the current budget year that is already at the midway point.

His resignation appears to have taken state officials by surprise.

Recent weeks also saw the less surprising resignation of Saul Kaplan, director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation after weeks of speculation. He and his top aide, Melissa Withers, are going to work for the Business Innovation Factory, a small-company incubator that shares EDC’s quarters at 315 Iron Horse Way, in Providence — and of which Kaplan was president, according to a filing with the IRS by the nonprofit organization.

Carcieri called Williams a “tremendous leader who has accomplished much in his years serving in the public sector.”

Under Williams’ leadership, he said, the Department of Administration “implemented a monthly financial reporting system for all state agencies coupled with alerts and sanctions for overspending … [and] successfully negotiated, as part of the state team, collective bargaining agreements resulting in $28 million in savings to the state.” He presided over the reorganization of his own department to cope with a 13.7 percent reduction in staff.

He also chaired the Transportation Blue Ribbon Panel that produced a draft report recommending the state charge tolls at the state line on every interstate highway and create a new tax for each mile a vehicle is driven to raise money to fix its crumbling roads and bridges and rescue the state’s financially challenged public transit system. The report also called for tolls on a new Sakonnet River Bridge, increasing the state gas tax and a long list of other things related to using the roads. One proposed tax would apply to anything made from petroleum, from paint to detergent to plastics.

“His commitment to public service is admirable, and he will be missed greatly by this administration,” Carcieri said.

After 19.7 years of state service, Williams will be eligible at age 60 for a state pension that pays him close to 36 percent of his current $143,011 salary, or roughly $51,000 annually, according to the state treasurer’s office.

kgregg@projo.com