Plainfield
Municipality · Union County
507 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Plainfield, reporting a median pensionable salary of $74,951.
As a municipality in Union County, Plainfield falls under New Jersey's Title 11A civil service system, which governs competitive hiring, classification, and promotion for its employees.
It is one of 23 confirmed civil service jurisdictions in Union 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.
Plainfield Police Department — discipline and transparency records via PoliceTransparencyNJ
See all 23 civil service jurisdictions in Union County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Plainfield
507 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Plainfield. 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 | 300 | 59% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 207 | 41% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 120 police officers and 87 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Plainfield actually appoints.
4 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 Plainfield.
Pensionable salary at Plainfield
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Plainfield reports a pensionable salary above $74,951 and half below, across 507 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $43,767 |
| 25th percentile | $56,837 |
| Median | $74,951 |
| 75th percentile | $108,128 |
| 90th percentile | $126,732 |
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 56th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $72,942. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 55th 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 Plainfield
The median enrolled member at Plainfield has 8.5 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 3.8 and 18.4 years. 21% 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 | 170 | 34% |
| 5 to 10 years | 119 | 23% |
| 10 to 15 years | 73 | 14% |
| 15 to 20 years | 41 | 8% |
| 20 to 25 years | 56 | 11% |
| 25 years or more | 48 | 9% |
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 Plainfield, 44% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 133 | 26% |
| Tier 2 | 2 | 0% |
| Tier 3 | 147 | 29% |
| Tier 4 | 3 | 1% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 222 | 44% |
Other public employers in Plainfield
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Plainfield. 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 |
|---|---|
| PLAINFIELD BD OF ED | 1,554 |
| PLAINFIELD CITY (this page) | 507 |
| PLAINFIELD HOUSING AUTHORITY | 17 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Plainfield
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.
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.
Passing an examination puts you on an eligible list, not into a job. Lists are promulgated for a fixed life, commonly three years, and the Commission certifies names from the live list whenever an employer reports a vacancy. If no list exists for a title when a vacancy opens, the employer has to ask for an examination to be held.
Civil service employers in Plainfield
Plainfield 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 Plainfield bodies hold civil service status separately from the city government, listed below. Each runs its own examinations and keeps its own eligible lists, so Plainfield is really three employers rather than one.
- Plainfield Housing Authority, housing authority
- Plainfield 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 Union County
Union County holds 23 confirmed jurisdictions in the Commission's listing: 9 public libraries, 9 municipalities, 2 boards of health, 2 housing authorities, and 1 county government.
9 of the county's 21 municipalities are among them.
Union 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: Linden Library, Plainfield Housing Authority, Plainfield Library, Rahway, Rahway Library, Roselle Borough, Roselle Library, Scotch Plains. See all 23 in Union County.
Common questions about Plainfield
Is Plainfield a civil service employer?
Yes. Plainfield 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 Plainfield cover the rest of Plainfield?
No. Plainfield 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 the job specification the same everywhere?
Yes, and that is the point of the classification system. A title has one specification statewide, covering the definition of the work, the education and experience requirements, and any licence the title depends on. That is what makes experience gained at one civil service employer legible to another, even in a different county.
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.
How many Plainfield employees are in a State pension system?
507 active memberships are reported through Plainfield, split across 300 in PERS and 207 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 Plainfield?
$74,951, with the middle half of members between $56,837 and $108,128. 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 Plainfield compare with the rest of Union County?
Its median pensionable salary of $74,951 sits at the 56th percentile among the 18 civil service jurisdictions in Union County with pension data, where the midpoint jurisdiction reports $72,942. Local pay is set by ordinance rather than a State schedule, so spreads inside one county are wide.
How long do people stay at Plainfield?
The median enrolled member has 8.5 years of credited service, and 21% 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.