Orange
Municipality · Essex County
298 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Orange, reporting a median pensionable salary of $108,621.
As a municipality in Essex County, Orange falls under New Jersey's Title 11A civil service system, which governs competitive hiring, classification, and promotion for its employees.
It is one of 33 confirmed civil service jurisdictions in Essex 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.
Orange Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 33 civil service jurisdictions in Essex County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Orange
298 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Orange. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 198 | 66% |
| PERS | Public Employees' Retirement System | 100 | 34% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 114 police officers and 84 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Orange 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 Orange.
Pensionable salary at Orange
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Orange reports a pensionable salary above $108,621 and half below, across 298 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $57,026 |
| 25th percentile | $67,959 |
| Median | $108,621 |
| 75th percentile | $115,452 |
| 90th percentile | $144,284 |
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 18 civil service jurisdictions in the same county with pension data, that median sits at the 89th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $80,912. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 99th 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 Orange
The median enrolled member at Orange has 10.5 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 6.8 and 20 years. 25% 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 | 53 | 18% |
| 5 to 10 years | 92 | 31% |
| 10 to 15 years | 52 | 17% |
| 15 to 20 years | 26 | 9% |
| 20 to 25 years | 40 | 13% |
| 25 years or more | 35 | 12% |
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 Orange, 20% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 89 | 30% |
| Tier 2 | 3 | 1% |
| Tier 3 | 147 | 49% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 59 | 20% |
Other public employers in Orange
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Orange. 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 |
|---|---|
| ORANGE CITY BD OF ED | 910 |
| ORANGE CITY (this page) | 298 |
| ORANGE CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY | 19 |
| ORANGE CITY LIBRARY | 8 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Orange
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.
New Jersey does not require an employer to hire whoever scored highest. When a list is certified, the appointing authority may choose among the top three interested candidates, which is why a rank of two or three on a list is still a serious position and why interviews still decide outcomes.
Countywide civil service employers in Essex County
Orange operates countywide rather than inside one municipality, so it is not tied to a single town's civil service status the way a municipal library or a fire district is.
Four other countywide bodies in Essex County are in the listing as well. They are separate employers with separate hiring, and a candidate list certified to one is not certified to another.
- Essex County, county government
- Orange City Library, public library
- Orange Housing Authority, housing authority
- South Essex Fire Department, fire district
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 Essex County
Essex County holds 33 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 11 public libraries, 11 municipalities, 5 municipal departments, 2 housing authorities, 1 board of health, 1 county government, 1 fire district, and 1 school district.
11 of the county's 22 municipalities are among them.
Essex 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: Bloomfield Board of Health, Bloomfield Library, East Orange, East Orange Library, Irvington, Irvington Housing Authority, Irvington Library, Millburn Library. See all 33 in Essex County.
Common questions about Orange
Is Orange a civil service employer?
Yes. Orange 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.
Are there jobs here that never go through an examination?
Yes. Unclassified positions, which typically include department heads and confidential staff, are filled at the discretion of the appointing authority. Noncompetitive and labor titles inside the classified service are also filled without a competitive examination, though they still sit under civil service rules for things like layoff rights.
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.
How many Orange employees are in a State pension system?
298 active memberships are reported through Orange, split across 198 in PFRS and 100 in PERS. 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 Orange?
$108,621, with the middle half of members between $67,959 and $115,452. 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 Orange compare with the rest of Essex County?
Its median pensionable salary of $108,621 sits at the 89th percentile among the 18 civil service jurisdictions in Essex County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $80,912. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Orange?
The median enrolled member has 10.5 years of credited service, and 25% 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.