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State Payroll

Rate Counsel

29 employees · NJ state government agency

Rate Counsel is a mid-sized state agency with 29 employees on the state payroll.

The most common title is Assistant Deputy Public Advocate 2 (28% of staff), followed by Deputy Public Advocate 2 and Clerk Typist. Median pay is $110,923, about 31% above the statewide median.

Median tenure is 6.8 years, shorter than the statewide median of 9.6 years. CWA represents the largest share of its unionized workforce (about 79%).

About Rate Counsel

The Division of Rate Counsel represents New Jersey consumers in utility rate cases. When an electric, gas, water or telecommunications company asks the Board of Public Utilities to raise rates, Rate Counsel is the party arguing the ratepayer side. It is deliberately independent of the board that decides those cases.

The roster is a small litigation office: assistant deputy and deputy public advocates carrying the case work, paralegal technicians and legal secretaries supporting it, and a single director. Median pay is high, which follows from a roster with essentially no junior tier rather than from unusual rates for the work. An office this small handling cases against utility companies with far larger legal budgets is worth keeping in mind when reading its headcount.

Who works here

These are the titles that carry the most people on this payroll. Each one links to its civil service specification, which sets out the duties, the minimum requirements and the salary range.

How pay is spread

Below are the quartile boundaries for this agency's salaries, with the statewide equivalents alongside them for reference.

The middle half of this agency's employees earn between $75,822 and $133,961, a ratio of 1.77 between the two quartiles. That is about the same spread as state government as a whole (1.80).

  • Lowest recorded salary$42,990
  • Lower quartile$75,822
    statewide $62,428
  • Median salary$110,923
    statewide $84,548
  • Upper quartile$133,961
    statewide $112,646
  • Highest recorded salary$184,000

Based on 29 salaried records.

Union representation

Which contract covers a job decides its salary schedule, its step ladder and its grievance route. This is the union mix on this payroll.

  • CWA23 employees
    79.3% of the agency
  • IBEW4 employees
    13.8% of the agency

Union coverage is identifiable for 93% of this agency's payroll records. The remainder are unclassified, exempt or managerial positions that sit outside a bargaining unit.

How long people stay

Tenure tells you something a salary table cannot: whether this is a place people arrive at or a place they stay.

Half of this agency's employees have been on the state payroll longer than 6.8 years, well short of the statewide median of 9.6. 36% joined within the last five years, and 28% have twenty years or more behind them.

  • Under 5 years9 employees
    36.0% of those with a hire date
  • 5 to 10 years7 employees
    28.0% of those with a hire date
  • 10 to 15 years2 employees
    8.0% of those with a hire date
  • 15 to 20 years0 employees
    0.0% of those with a hire date
  • 20 to 25 years6 employees
    24.0% of those with a hire date
  • 25 years or more1 employee
    4.0% of those with a hire date

Hire dates are present for 25 of this agency's 29 payroll records.

Civil service coverage

93% of this agency's payroll records carry a title that matches a published civil service specification. That is a high match rate, and it means the hiring routes described elsewhere on this site apply to most jobs here: an announced examination, an eligible list, and appointment from that list.

  • Records matched to a specification27
  • Records with no matching specification2
  • Distinct civil service titles on the roster15

Where it sits among state agencies

By headcount this is the 35th largest of the 39 payroll lines in New Jersey state government, under a twentieth of one percent of the state workforce.

Its nearest neighbours by headcount, for readers who want a like-for-like comparison.