Lakewood Township
Municipality · Ocean County
496 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Lakewood Township, reporting a median pensionable salary of $67,149.
As a municipality in Ocean County, Lakewood Township falls under New Jersey's Title 11A civil service system, which governs competitive hiring, classification, and promotion for its employees.
It is one of 28 confirmed civil service jurisdictions in Ocean County.
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.
Lakewood Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 28 civil service jurisdictions in Ocean County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Lakewood Township
496 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Lakewood Township. 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 | 318 | 64% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 178 | 36% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 178 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 Lakewood Township actually appoints.
12 of these members hold 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 Lakewood Township.
Pensionable salary at Lakewood Township
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Lakewood Township reports a pensionable salary above $67,149 and half below, across 496 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $39,393 |
| 25th percentile | $53,229 |
| Median | $67,149 |
| 75th percentile | $115,848 |
| 90th percentile | $153,538 |
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 23 civil service jurisdictions in the same county with pension data, that median sits at the 57th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $67,000. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 27th 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 Lakewood Township
The median enrolled member at Lakewood Township has 7.9 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 3.1 and 17.8 years. 19% 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 | 179 | 36% |
| 5 to 10 years | 114 | 23% |
| 10 to 15 years | 61 | 12% |
| 15 to 20 years | 46 | 9% |
| 20 to 25 years | 58 | 12% |
| 25 years or more | 38 | 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 Lakewood Township, 50% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 124 | 25% |
| Tier 2 | 5 | 1% |
| Tier 3 | 117 | 24% |
| Tier 4 | 3 | 1% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 247 | 50% |
Other public employers in Lakewood Township
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Lakewood Township. 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 |
|---|---|
| LAKEWOOD TWP BD OF ED | 782 |
| LAKEWOOD TOWNSHIP (this page) | 496 |
| LAKEWOOD TWP FIRE DISTRICT 1 | 52 |
| LAKEWOOD HOUSING AUTHORITY | 16 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Lakewood Township
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.
Permanent employees carry layoff rights. In a layoff, rights are determined by permanent status and seniority within the affected unit, displacement into another title can be available, and laid-off employees go onto a special reemployment list that takes priority when the title is filled again. None of that applies to provisional or temporary service.
Civil service employers in Lakewood Township
Lakewood Township appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the township government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
Two other Lakewood Township bodies hold civil service status separately from the township government, listed below. Each runs its own examinations and keeps its own eligible lists, so Lakewood Township is really three employers rather than one.
- Lakewood Fire District (1), fire district
- Lakewood Municipal Utilities Authority, municipal utilities authority
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 Ocean County
Ocean County holds 28 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 16 municipalities, 3 fire districts, 2 school districts, 2 municipal utilities authorities, 1 board of health, 1 board of social services, 1 county government, 1 public library, and 1 mosquito extermination commission.
16 of the county's 33 municipalities are among them.
Ocean 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: Ocean County Board of Social Services, Ocean County Library, Ocean County Mosquito Extermination, Point Pleasant Beach Borough, Point Pleasant Borough, Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, South Toms River. See all 28 in Ocean County.
Common questions about Lakewood Township
Is Lakewood Township a civil service employer?
Yes. Lakewood Township 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.
Does civil service status at Lakewood Township cover the rest of Lakewood Township?
No. Lakewood Township has more than one employer in the listing, and each holds its own status, runs its own examinations and keeps its own eligible lists. Seniority and permanent status earned at one do not transfer automatically to another, even inside the same town.
Is there always a written test?
No. New Jersey runs both assembled examinations, where candidates are scheduled to sit a test, and unassembled ones, where a reviewer scores your education and experience against the requirements in the specification and there is no test day at all. The announcement says which kind it is. For an unassembled examination the application itself is the examination, so how fully you describe your experience is the score.
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 Lakewood Township employees are in a State pension system?
496 active memberships are reported through Lakewood Township, split across 318 in PERS and 178 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 Lakewood Township?
$67,149, with the middle half of members between $53,229 and $115,848. 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 Lakewood Township compare with the rest of Ocean County?
Its median pensionable salary of $67,149 sits at the 57th percentile among the 23 civil service jurisdictions in Ocean County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $67,000. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Lakewood Township?
The median enrolled member has 7.9 years of credited service, and 19% 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.