Upper Township
Municipality · Cape May County
63 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Upper Township, reporting a median pensionable salary of $69,804.
Upper Township is a confirmed New Jersey civil service jurisdiction — a municipality in Cape May County that has adopted Title 11A of the New Jersey Statutes to govern how it hires, classifies, and promotes employees.
Cape May County has 22 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.
See all 22 civil service jurisdictions in Cape May County, or browse the full employer directory.
Who is on the pension rolls at Upper Township
63 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Upper 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 | 63 | 100% |
5 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 Upper Township.
Pensionable salary at Upper Township
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Upper Township reports a pensionable salary above $69,804 and half below, across 63 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $57,565 |
| 25th percentile | $64,309 |
| Median | $69,804 |
| 75th percentile | $73,958 |
| 90th percentile | $87,761 |
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 94th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $60,305. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 39th 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 Upper Township
The median enrolled member at Upper Township has 9.9 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 4.8 and 22.1 years. 37% 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 | 16 | 25% |
| 5 to 10 years | 16 | 25% |
| 10 to 15 years | 2 | 3% |
| 15 to 20 years | 6 | 10% |
| 20 to 25 years | 14 | 22% |
| 25 years or more | 9 | 14% |
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 Upper Township, 54% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 28 | 44% |
| Tier 2 | 1 | 2% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 34 | 54% |
Other public employers in Upper Township
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Upper 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 |
|---|---|
| UPPER TOWNSHIP BD OF ED | 204 |
| UPPER TOWNSHIP (this page) | 63 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Upper 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.
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.
Civil service employers in Upper Township
Upper 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 Upper Township appears alongside it. No library board, fire district, utilities authority or housing authority here holds separate status, which means every local job in Upper 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 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: Sea Isle City, 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. See all 22 in Cape May County.
Common questions about Upper Township
Is Upper Township a civil service employer?
Yes. Upper 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.
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.
Do veterans get a preference on these lists?
Yes, and in New Jersey it is unusually strong. On an open competitive list, disabled veterans who pass are ranked ahead of all other candidates, and other veterans who pass are ranked ahead of non-veterans, regardless of score. Preference has to be claimed and verified in advance, and it does not carry over to promotional examinations.
How many Upper Township employees are in a State pension system?
63 active memberships are reported through Upper Township, split across 63 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 Upper Township?
$69,804, with the middle half of members between $64,309 and $73,958. 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 Upper Township compare with the rest of Cape May County?
Its median pensionable salary of $69,804 sits at the 94th 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 Upper Township?
The median enrolled member has 9.9 years of credited service, and 37% 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.