Rahway
Municipality · Union County
274 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Rahway, reporting a median pensionable salary of $70,932.
Rahway is a confirmed New Jersey civil service jurisdiction — a municipality in Union County that has adopted Title 11A of the New Jersey Statutes to govern how it hires, classifies, and promotes employees.
Union County has 23 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.
Rahway 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 Rahway
274 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Rahway. 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 | 145 | 53% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 129 | 47% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 78 police officers and 51 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Rahway 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 Rahway.
Pensionable salary at Rahway
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Rahway reports a pensionable salary above $70,932 and half below, across 274 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $49,115 |
| 25th percentile | $54,956 |
| Median | $70,932 |
| 75th percentile | $103,812 |
| 90th percentile | $142,838 |
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 50th percentile, below the county's midpoint of $72,942. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 43rd 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 Rahway
The median enrolled member at Rahway has 8.7 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 4.4 and 19 years. 23% 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 | 85 | 31% |
| 5 to 10 years | 65 | 24% |
| 10 to 15 years | 38 | 14% |
| 15 to 20 years | 23 | 8% |
| 20 to 25 years | 30 | 11% |
| 25 years or more | 33 | 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 Rahway, 34% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 77 | 28% |
| Tier 2 | 2 | 1% |
| Tier 3 | 100 | 36% |
| Tier 4 | 1 | 0% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 94 | 34% |
Other public employers in Rahway
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Rahway. 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 |
|---|---|
| RAHWAY CITY BD OF ED | 557 |
| RAHWAY CITY (this page) | 274 |
| RAHWAY CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY | 14 |
| RAHWAY PUBLIC LIBRARY | 11 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Rahway
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.
Admission to an examination is decided on paper before anyone sits down to take it. The requirements printed in the specification are checked against what you wrote on the application, so experience you did not describe is experience that does not count. Vague employment history is the most common reason a qualified applicant never reaches the list.
Civil service employers in Rahway
Rahway City appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the city government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
One other Rahway body is listed separately: Rahway Library, a public library. It is a distinct employer with its own hiring, so a job there is not a job with the city, and permanent status earned at one does not carry to the other.
- Rahway 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: Union Township Board of Health, Union Township Library, Clark Library, Clark Township, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Housing Authority, Elizabeth Library, Hillside Library. See all 23 in Union County.
Common questions about Rahway
Is Rahway a civil service employer?
Yes. Rahway 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 Rahway cover the rest of Rahway?
No. Rahway 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.
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.
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.
How many Rahway employees are in a State pension system?
274 active memberships are reported through Rahway, split across 145 in PERS and 129 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 Rahway?
$70,932, with the middle half of members between $54,956 and $103,812. 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 Rahway compare with the rest of Union County?
Its median pensionable salary of $70,932 sits at the 50th 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 Rahway?
The median enrolled member has 8.7 years of credited service, and 23% 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.