Highlands Borough
Municipality · Monmouth County
36 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Highlands Borough, reporting a median pensionable salary of $67,511.
Highlands Borough, a municipality in Monmouth County, operates under New Jersey's Title 11A civil service system rather than setting its own hiring rules independently.
Within Monmouth County, 25 local government entities in total carry this same confirmed status.
About municipalities in New Jersey
New Jersey has 564 municipalities, and each one decides for itself whether to operate under Title 11A. A municipality that adopts civil service hires and promotes employees through competitive exams administered by the state; one that hasn't sets its own local hiring rules instead.
Highlands Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 25 civil service jurisdictions in Monmouth County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Highlands Borough
36 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Highlands Borough. That is a count of active memberships reported by the employer, not a payroll headcount: anyone not enrolled in one of these funds does not appear in this data at all, and no separate headcount for a New Jersey local employer is published anywhere we can check against.
| Fund | Name | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| PERS | Public Employees' Retirement System | 20 | 56% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 16 | 44% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 16 police officers. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Highlands Borough actually appoints.
1 of these members holds a second public job in New Jersey: their reported salary across all public employers exceeds what they are paid here. Shared and part-time appointments are common in local government, and the salary figures below count only the portion earned at Highlands Borough.
Pensionable salary at Highlands Borough
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Highlands Borough reports a pensionable salary above $67,511 and half below, across 36 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $39,741 |
| 25th percentile | $53,945 |
| Median | $67,511 |
| 75th percentile | $135,229 |
| 90th percentile | $146,031 |
The range runs from the 10th to the 90th percentile because the extremes are not informative: the lowest reported figures belong to part-time and partial-year members, whose credited salary is a fraction of a full-time equivalent.
Among the 21 civil service jurisdictions in the same county with pension data, that median sits at the 33rd percentile, below the county's midpoint of $73,546. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 29th percentile.
These figures are pensionable salary reported to the NJ Division of Pensions and Benefits for the four most recent quarters, not total pay and not take-home pay. Snapshot of March 31, 2026. How we compile this.
How long people stay at Highlands Borough
The median enrolled member at Highlands Borough has 8.5 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 5.1 and 20.6 years. 28% have passed twenty years, which matters locally because retirement eligibility and the pension formula both turn on service credit.
| Credited service | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 9 | 25% |
| 5 to 10 years | 11 | 31% |
| 10 to 15 years | 2 | 6% |
| 15 to 20 years | 4 | 11% |
| 20 to 25 years | 7 | 19% |
| 25 years or more | 3 | 8% |
Membership tier records which pension rules a member was hired under, so the mix is a rough picture of how recently a workforce turned over. At Highlands Borough, 31% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 11 | 31% |
| Tier 2 | 2 | 6% |
| Tier 3 | 12 | 33% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 11 | 31% |
Other public employers in Highlands Borough
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Highlands Borough. Each is its own employer for pension purposes, and only some are civil service jurisdictions — school boards, charter schools and parking authorities are ordinary public employers that were never part of Title 11A. Names link only where the body appears in this directory.
| Employer | Enrolled members |
|---|---|
| HIGHLANDS BOROUGH (this page) | 36 |
| HIGHLANDS BORO BD OF ED | 28 |
| HIGHLANDS HOUSING AUTH | 4 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Highlands Borough
In a municipality that operates under Title 11A, the mayor, administrator or governing body still decides which positions exist and who gets appointed to them. What changes is the route in. Most permanent positions have to be filled from a list of candidates who took and passed an open competitive examination.
That flips the usual job hunt around. For a competitive title you announce yourself by filing for the exam when it is posted, not by dropping a resume at the municipal building. Municipal employers also run the widest mix of titles in this directory: police and fire, public works and sanitation, code enforcement and construction inspection, tax collection, clerical support, recreation, and dispatch.
Promotional examinations are closed. They are open to employees already serving in the unit, scored on a combination of the examination and seniority, and they are how most supervisory positions in local government get filled. It is the main reason entry-level appointments matter so much: they are the door to the ladder above them.
Your title, not your assignment, defines what you are supposed to be doing. If the duties you actually perform drift outside the specification for the title you hold, that is a classification question rather than a management preference, and an employee can ask for the position to be reviewed and reclassified. It is one of the quieter protections in the system and one of the least used.
Civil service employers in Highlands Borough
Highlands Borough appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the borough government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
Nothing else in Highlands Borough appears alongside it. No library board, fire district, utilities authority or housing authority here holds separate status, which means every local job in Highlands Borough that falls under Title 11A is a job with the borough government itself.
Civil service titles used by New Jersey municipalities
Real classifications that New Jersey municipalities draw on, each linked to its official specification: the definition of the work, the requirements, and any licence the title depends on. A sample of the system rather than a roster or a list of openings.
Civil service coverage across Monmouth County
Monmouth County holds 25 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 16 municipalities, 4 fire districts, 2 housing authorities, 1 county government, 1 public library, and 1 municipal utilities authority.
16 of the county's 53 municipalities are among them.
Monmouth County is a jurisdiction too, though a county's decision does not bind the towns, authorities, libraries or districts inside it.
Also in the directory: Freehold Township, Hazlet Fire District (1), Hazlet Township, Holmdel Township, Keansburg, Keyport Borough, Lake Como Borough, Long Branch. See all 25 in Monmouth County.
Common questions about Highlands Borough
Is Highlands Borough a civil service employer?
Yes. Highlands Borough appears in the New Jersey Civil Service Commission's listing of local civil service system jurisdictions as of July 2024, which makes it an appointing authority under Title 11A. Permanent appointments to competitive titles there come from eligible lists the Commission certifies, rather than from purely local hiring.
Do you have to live in New Jersey to work here?
Generally yes. The New Jersey First Act requires public employees hired after September 1, 2011 to live in the state, with a grace period for new hires to relocate and a narrow exemption process. Separately, individual examination announcements sometimes carry a local residency preference, which affects the order of the list rather than eligibility.
Can you challenge an examination result?
Yes. Eligibility determinations, examination scoring and list placement can be appealed to the Civil Service Commission, and there are filing deadlines measured from the date of the notice rather than from when you happen to see it. The appeal route is the reason the notices matter: missing the window generally forecloses the argument.
How many Highlands Borough employees are in a State pension system?
36 active memberships are reported through Highlands Borough, split across 20 in PERS and 16 in PFRS. This counts pension enrolment rather than payroll, so employees who are not in one of these funds are not included.
What is the median pensionable salary at Highlands Borough?
$67,511, with the middle half of members between $53,945 and $135,229. These figures are pensionable salary reported to the NJ Division of Pensions and Benefits for the four most recent quarters, not total pay and not take-home pay. It excludes overtime and most supplemental pay, and it is before tax, before the member's own pension contribution and before health premiums.
How does pay at Highlands Borough compare with the rest of Monmouth County?
Its median pensionable salary of $67,511 sits at the 33rd percentile among the 21 civil service jurisdictions in Monmouth County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $73,546. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Highlands Borough?
The median enrolled member has 8.5 years of credited service, and 28% have passed twenty years. Credited service drives both retirement eligibility and the pension formula, so a long-tenured workforce usually means fewer open competitive appointments in the near term.