Lawrence Township
Municipality · Mercer County
178 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Lawrence Township, reporting a median pensionable salary of $70,088.
Lawrence Township is a confirmed New Jersey civil service jurisdiction — a municipality in Mercer County that has adopted Title 11A of the New Jersey Statutes to govern how it hires, classifies, and promotes employees.
Mercer County has 7 confirmed civil service jurisdictions in total, including this one.
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.
Lawrence Township Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 7 civil service jurisdictions in Mercer County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Lawrence Township
178 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Lawrence 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 | 112 | 63% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 66 | 37% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 56 police officers and 10 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Lawrence Township actually appoints.
Pensionable salary at Lawrence Township
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Lawrence Township reports a pensionable salary above $70,088 and half below, across 178 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $36,822 |
| 25th percentile | $54,953 |
| Median | $70,088 |
| 75th percentile | $95,100 |
| 90th percentile | $138,876 |
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 6 civil service jurisdictions in the same county with pension data, that median sits at the 33rd percentile, below the county's midpoint of $70,258. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 41st 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 Lawrence Township
The median enrolled member at Lawrence Township has 9.1 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 2.8 and 18.5 years. 22% 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 | 60 | 34% |
| 5 to 10 years | 34 | 19% |
| 10 to 15 years | 33 | 19% |
| 15 to 20 years | 11 | 6% |
| 20 to 25 years | 20 | 11% |
| 25 years or more | 20 | 11% |
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 Lawrence Township, 43% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 47 | 26% |
| Tier 2 | 2 | 1% |
| Tier 3 | 52 | 29% |
| Tier 4 | 1 | 1% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 76 | 43% |
Other public employers in Lawrence Township
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Lawrence 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 |
|---|---|
| LAWRENCE TWP BD OF ED (MERCER) | 590 |
| LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP (MERCER) (this page) | 178 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Lawrence 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.
Temporary and seasonal appointments sit outside the permanent track entirely. Summer recreation staff, short-term project help and coverage for an absent employee are filled without an examination and end when the need does. The work counts as experience when you later apply for a competitive title, but it confers no status of its own.
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 Lawrence Township
Lawrence Township appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the township government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
Nothing else in Lawrence Township appears alongside it. No library board, fire district, utilities authority or housing authority here holds separate status, which means every local job in Lawrence Township that falls under Title 11A is a job with the township 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 Mercer County
Mercer County holds 7 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 4 municipalities, 1 board of social services, 1 county government, and 1 public library.
4 of the county's 12 municipalities are among them.
Mercer 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: Mercer County Board of Social Services, Trenton, Trenton Library, Ewing Township, Hamilton Township. See all 7 in Mercer County.
Common questions about Lawrence Township
Is Lawrence Township a civil service employer?
Yes. Lawrence 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.
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.
Does the state salary schedule apply to local jobs?
No. The salary schedules in the Compensation Compendium cover state employees. A local employer sets its own pay through ordinance and its own collective bargaining, so two towns using the identical civil service title can pay very differently. The title specification is statewide; the money attached to it is local.
How many Lawrence Township employees are in a State pension system?
178 active memberships are reported through Lawrence Township, split across 112 in PERS and 66 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 Lawrence Township?
$70,088, with the middle half of members between $54,953 and $95,100. 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 Lawrence Township compare with the rest of Mercer County?
Its median pensionable salary of $70,088 sits at the 33rd percentile among the 6 civil service jurisdictions in Mercer County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $70,258. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Lawrence Township?
The median enrolled member has 9.1 years of credited service, and 22% 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.