NJ Civil Service Navigator

Accountant Family

Career series with 8 positions across 3 levels

In New Jersey civil service, Accountant names a 3-level progression covering 8 distinct titles.

Entry is typically through Accountant 3, advancing through the ladder toward Accountant 1 and, from there, into supervisory roles. Pay across the family spans $58,222 to $128,719, around the 54th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 71 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Treasury.

Accountant is a common next step after Forensic Accountant.

8
Positions
3
Career Levels
Salary Range: $58,222 - $128,719/year

Positions in This Family

What the Accountant family covers

Accountant is a graded series in the New Jersey civil service classification plan, running 8 title codes across 3 levels. The family straddles jurisdictions: 6 state and 2 local, so parts of it are hired by state departments and parts by local civil service employers.

Financial titles are unusually legible compared with the rest of the plan, because the duties track a professional body of practice rather than an agency's internal structure. That makes the ladders predictable, the qualification language consistent, and movement between departments straightforward. It also makes them one of the better-documented corners of the state payroll, since almost every department employs some of them, so the headcount and salary figures for these families rest on large samples rather than a handful of positions.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Ordered by what they actually pay rather than by the number in the title, the Accountant rungs look like this. Note that the numbers in these titles do not run in pay order. In this family a lower number sits higher on the ladder, which is a New Jersey convention that catches people out when they read a title list top to bottom.

  • Supervising Accountant — $87,507 to $128,719 (a bachelor's degree and 3 years of experience)
  • Accountant 1 — $83,582 to $122,832 (a bachelor's degree and 3 years of experience)
  • Accountant 1 — $76,287 to $111,856 (a bachelor's degree and 3 years of experience)
  • Accountant 2 — $66,592 to $97,354 (a bachelor's degree and 2 years of experience)
  • Accountant 3 — $58,222 to $84,763 (a bachelor's degree and 1 year of experience)

The distance from the bottom of Accountant 3 to the top of Supervising Accountant is $70,497, an increase of about 121% over the entry minimum.

What each title does

Each title in the family carries its own published definition. These are the opening lines of each one, which is usually where the difference between two neighboring rungs is actually stated.

  • Principal Accountant: Under the direction of a Supervising Accountant or other fiscal officer, performs highly responsible and complex professional accounting work concerned with…
  • Supervising Accountant: Under direction, supervises accounting operations, activities and staff; performs varied, professional accounting work concerned with designing, maintaining…
  • Accountant 1: Under the direction of a supervisory officer in a state department, institution, or agency supervises the work of an accounting unit, or, personally is responsible for a…
  • Supervising Accountant: Under the direction of a principal administrative officer in a state department or agency, has charge of one of the major areas of the accounting program; does…
  • Accountant 3: Under a supervisory official in a state department, institution, or agency, does independent accounting work of some importance and difficulty; does related work as…
  • Accountant 2: Under the direction of an Accountant 1 or other supervisory officer, takes the lead in (l) a group of Accountants of lower grades engaged in professional accounting work, or…

What it takes to qualify

Across the 8 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a bachelor's degree on 7 of them and a master's degree on 1 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 3 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

On how the jobs are filled: 8 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.

Who actually employs these titles

71 people appear on the state payroll under 4 of these titles, at 14 agencies. Treasury alone accounts for about 41% of them.

  • Treasury — 29 employees
  • Human Services — 11 employees
  • Corrections — 9 employees
  • Law and Public Safety — 7 employees
  • Health and Senior Services — 5 employees
  • Military and Veterans Affairs — 2 employees

Those are the 6 largest of 14 agencies employing this family.

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $63,946 for Accountant 3 up to $124,366 for Supervising Accountant. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.

State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.

How the pay is set

Titles in this family are paid on the A-P-R-S salary schedule. See every step in that schedule. Bargaining is handled by CWA. Union contracts and rights are collected here.

Where these jobs exist

Because the family mixes jurisdictions, the answer to "who hires this" depends on the specific code. State codes run through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process; local codes are hired by the counties, municipalities and authorities that adopted civil service under Title 11A. Check an employer's status before assuming a title is available where you live.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

These titles sit elsewhere in the classification plan but share vocabulary with Accountant, which usually means overlapping duties or a related eligible list.

Families next to this one

New Jersey's classification plan links families by shared terminology and by the routes people actually take between them. These sit closest to Accountant.

Common questions about Accountant jobs

How many separate Accountant classifications does New Jersey have?

The Accountant family holds 8 title codes arranged across 3 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

How much is an Accountant paid?

Published salary data for this family runs from $58,222 at the bottom of Accountant 3 to $128,719 at the top of Supervising Accountant. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.

Is there a civil service test for Accountant?

Yes for most of the family. 8 of the 8 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.

What are the requirements to become an Accountant?

The most common education requirement in this family is a bachelor's degree, named on 7 of the 8 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 3 years depending on the rung. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Accountant staff?

State payroll records show 71 people in this family across 14 agencies, with Treasury the largest at 29. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.

Is Accountant 1 higher or lower than Accountant 3?

In this family the lower number is the more senior title. New Jersey's level numbering does not run in pay order, and reading the titles by number alone will give you the ladder upside down. The list above is sorted by what each title actually pays.