Ocean City
Municipality · Cape May County
305 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Ocean City, reporting a median pensionable salary of $89,136.
As a municipality in Cape May County, Ocean City falls under New Jersey's Title 11A civil service system, which governs competitive hiring, classification, and promotion for its employees.
It is one of 22 confirmed civil service jurisdictions in Cape May 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.
Ocean City Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 22 civil service jurisdictions in Cape May County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Ocean City
305 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Ocean City. 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 | 173 | 57% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 132 | 43% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 69 police officers and 63 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Ocean City actually appoints.
2 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 Ocean City.
Pensionable salary at Ocean City
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Ocean City reports a pensionable salary above $89,136 and half below, across 305 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $52,935 |
| 25th percentile | $68,457 |
| Median | $89,136 |
| 75th percentile | $127,615 |
| 90th percentile | $145,940 |
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 16 civil service jurisdictions in the same county with pension data, that median sits at the 100th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $60,305. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 88th 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 Ocean City
The median enrolled member at Ocean City has 12.3 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 5.8 and 21.8 years. 29% 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 | 20% |
| 5 to 10 years | 69 | 23% |
| 10 to 15 years | 56 | 18% |
| 15 to 20 years | 31 | 10% |
| 20 to 25 years | 33 | 11% |
| 25 years or more | 56 | 18% |
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 Ocean City, 34% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 104 | 34% |
| Tier 2 | 9 | 3% |
| Tier 3 | 83 | 27% |
| Tier 4 | 6 | 2% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 103 | 34% |
Other public employers in Ocean City
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Ocean City. 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 |
|---|---|
| OCEAN CITY BD OF ED | 307 |
| OCEAN CITY (this page) | 305 |
| OCEAN CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY | 5 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Ocean City
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.
When there is no eligible list for a title, an employer can fill the job provisionally. Provisional service is real work at real pay, but it builds no permanent rights, and the employer is supposed to request an examination so the position can be filled permanently. Anyone appointed provisionally who wants to keep the job needs to take that examination when it comes.
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 Ocean City
Ocean City appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the city government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
Two other Ocean City bodies hold civil service status separately from the city government, listed below. Each runs its own examinations and keeps its own eligible lists, so Ocean City is really three employers rather than one.
- Ocean City Housing Authority, housing authority
- Ocean City Library, public library
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 Cape May County
Cape May County holds 22 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 11 municipalities, 3 municipal departments, 2 housing authorities, 2 public libraries, 1 county government, 1 fire district, 1 school district, and 1 municipal utilities authority.
11 of the county's 16 municipalities are among them.
Cape May 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: Wildwood City, Wildwood City Housing Authority, Wildwood City Public Safety and Public Affairs, Wildwood City Public Works and Public Property, Wildwood City Revenue and Finance, Wildwood Crest Borough, Woodbine Borough, Cape May City. See all 22 in Cape May County.
Common questions about Ocean City
Is Ocean City a civil service employer?
Yes. Ocean City 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 Ocean City cover the rest of Ocean City?
No. Ocean City 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.
Does the Civil Service Commission decide who gets hired?
No. The Commission runs the examination, ranks the candidates and certifies the list. The employer is the appointing authority: it decides whether to fill the position at all and which of the reachable candidates to appoint. That division is why a high score improves your odds without guaranteeing anything.
How many Ocean City employees are in a State pension system?
305 active memberships are reported through Ocean City, split across 173 in PERS and 132 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 Ocean City?
$89,136, with the middle half of members between $68,457 and $127,615. 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 Ocean City compare with the rest of Cape May County?
Its median pensionable salary of $89,136 sits at the 100th percentile among the 16 civil service jurisdictions in Cape May County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $60,305. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Ocean City?
The median enrolled member has 12.3 years of credited service, and 29% 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.