Wildwood City
Municipality · Cape May County
168 people are enrolled in a State pension fund through Wildwood City, reporting a median pensionable salary of $66,625.
As a municipality in Cape May County, Wildwood 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.
Department-level jurisdictions
Wildwood 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 Wildwood City
168 people are enrolled in a State-administered pension fund through Wildwood 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 | 95 | 57% |
| PFRS | Police and Firemen's Retirement System | 73 | 43% |
Within PFRS, the fund records 45 police officers and 28 firefighters. PFRS enrolment is the only occupational detail this dataset carries; it lists no job titles, so nothing here says which civil service titles Wildwood 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 Wildwood City.
Pensionable salary at Wildwood City
Half of the pension-enrolled workforce at Wildwood City reports a pensionable salary above $66,625 and half below, across 168 members with a reported figure.
| Point in the distribution | Pensionable salary |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $37,156 |
| 25th percentile | $51,849 |
| Median | $66,625 |
| 75th percentile | $95,718 |
| 90th percentile | $125,443 |
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 69th percentile, above the county's midpoint of $60,305. Against the 194 bodies of the same kind statewide, it sits at the 25th 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 Wildwood City
The median enrolled member at Wildwood City has 10.6 years of credited service, with the middle half falling between 3.7 and 21.6 years. 30% 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 | 51 | 30% |
| 5 to 10 years | 31 | 18% |
| 10 to 15 years | 23 | 14% |
| 15 to 20 years | 12 | 7% |
| 20 to 25 years | 28 | 17% |
| 25 years or more | 23 | 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 Wildwood City, 33% sit in the most recently hired cohort.
| Membership tier | Members | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (longest-serving cohort) | 59 | 35% |
| Tier 3 | 53 | 32% |
| Tier 4 | 1 | 1% |
| Tier 5 (most recently hired cohort) | 55 | 33% |
Other public employers in Wildwood
The pension system reports these separate public employers in Wildwood. 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 |
|---|---|
| WILDWOOD CITY (this page) | 168 |
| WILDWOOD CITY BD OF ED | 138 |
| WILDWOOD CITY HOUSING AUTHORIT | 5 |
What civil service status means for jobs at Wildwood 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 Wildwood
Wildwood City appears in the Commission's listing in its own right, so the city government is the appointing authority for its own classified staff.
Four other Wildwood bodies hold civil service status separately from the city government, listed below. Each runs its own examinations and keeps its own eligible lists, so Wildwood is really five employers rather than one.
- Wildwood City Housing Authority, housing authority
- Wildwood City Public Safety and Public Affairs, municipal department
- Wildwood City Public Works and Public Property, municipal department
- Wildwood City Revenue and Finance, municipal department
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: North Wildwood City, Ocean City, Ocean City Housing Authority, Ocean City Library, Sea Isle City, Upper Township, Wildwood City Housing Authority, Wildwood City Public Safety and Public Affairs. See all 22 in Cape May County.
Common questions about Wildwood City
Is Wildwood City a civil service employer?
Yes. Wildwood 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 Wildwood City cover the rest of Wildwood?
No. Wildwood 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.
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 do you find out when an examination is announced?
Announcements are published by the Civil Service Commission on their own schedule, each with a filing window that closes on a fixed date. Local employers do not always advertise separately, so watching the announcements directly is more reliable than watching a municipal website. Filing late is not curable, which makes the calendar the single most important part of the process.
How many Wildwood City employees are in a State pension system?
168 active memberships are reported through Wildwood City, split across 95 in PERS and 73 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 Wildwood City?
$66,625, with the middle half of members between $51,849 and $95,718. 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 Wildwood City compare with the rest of Cape May County?
Its median pensionable salary of $66,625 sits at the 69th 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 Wildwood City?
The median enrolled member has 10.6 years of credited service, and 30% 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.