Emergency Response Specialist Family
Career series with 4 positions across 4 levels
Emergency Response Specialist is a career-ladder family in New Jersey civil service, with 4 titles spanning 4 levels.
Entry is typically through Emergency Response Specialist 1, advancing through the ladder toward Emergency Response Specialist 4. Pay across the family spans $69,668 to $155,359, around the 86th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 11 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Environmental Protection.
Emergency Response Specialist reports to supervising titles such as Supervising Program Development Specialist and Senior Environmental Health Specialist.
Positions in This Family
- EMERGENCY RESPONSE SPECIALIST 1 (15862) $69,668 - $101,951/year
- EMERGENCY RESPONSE SPECIALIST 2 (15863) $79,844 - $117,228/year
- EMERGENCY RESPONSE SPECIALIST 3 (15864) $91,628 - $134,900/year
- EMERGENCY RESPONSE SPECIALIST 4 (15875) $105,267 - $155,359/year
What the Emergency Response Specialist family covers
Emergency Response Specialist is a graded series in the New Jersey civil service classification plan, running 4 title codes across 4 levels. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.
Sworn and investigative titles sit apart from the rest of civil service. They carry their own salary schedules, their own unions and, in most cases, an academy requirement and a medical and psychological screen on top of the exam. Rank is handled by moving between titles rather than by moving up a range, so the ladder here is a sequence of separate classifications. New Jersey also runs a large civilian investigative service alongside the sworn forces, and those titles follow ordinary competitive rules even though the work overlaps.
The ladder, ordered by pay
Ordered by what they actually pay rather than by the number in the title, the Emergency Response Specialist rungs look like this. Here the numbering happens to agree with the pay order, which is not guaranteed elsewhere in New Jersey's plan.
- Emergency Response Specialist 4 — $105,267 to $155,359 (a bachelor's degree)
- Emergency Response Specialist 3 — $91,628 to $134,900 (a bachelor's degree)
- Emergency Response Specialist 2 — $79,844 to $117,228 (a bachelor's degree)
- Emergency Response Specialist 1 — $69,668 to $101,951 (a bachelor's degree)
The distance from the bottom of Emergency Response Specialist 1 to the top of Emergency Response Specialist 4 is $85,691, an increase of about 123% 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.
- Emergency Response Specialist 1: Under the close supervision of an Emergency Response Specialist 3 or other higher-level supervisory official in the Emergency Management Program…
- Emergency Response Specialist 2: Under the limited supervision of an Emergency Response Specialist 3, or other higher-level supervisory official in the Emergency Management Program…
- Emergency Response Specialist 3: Under the general supervision of an Emergency Response Specialist 4, or other higher level supervisory official in the Emergency Management Program…
- Emergency Response Specialist 4: Under general supervision of a Bureau Chief or higher level supervisory official in the Emergency Management Program, Department of Environmental…
What it takes to qualify
Across the 4 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a bachelor's degree on 4 of them. Every title here carries a license or certification requirement, so the credential matters more than the exam score.
On how the jobs are filled: 4 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.
Who actually employs these titles
State payroll records show 11 people working under 4 of this family's titles, spread across 1 agency. Environmental Protection alone accounts for about 100% of them.
- Environmental Protection — 11 employees
Median actual pay varies across the family, from $67,312 for Emergency Response Specialist 1 up to $145,265 for Emergency Response Specialist 4. 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
These are state titles, hired by New Jersey departments, commissions and boards through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process rather than by an ordinary job posting. How state hiring works, and which agencies employ what.
Related titles elsewhere in the plan
These titles sit elsewhere in the classification plan but share vocabulary with Emergency Response Specialist, which usually means overlapping duties or a related eligible list.
- Emergency Response Specialist (both state and local jurisdiction)
- Emergency Response Specialist Trainee ($63,663 to $66,592, state jurisdiction)
- Emergency Medical Technician (local jurisdiction)
- Chief Emergency Medical Technician (local jurisdiction) — in the Chief family
- Senior Emergency Medical Technician (local jurisdiction)
- County Emergency Management Planner (local jurisdiction)
Common questions about Emergency Response Specialist jobs
How many Emergency Response Specialist titles are there in New Jersey civil service?
The Emergency Response Specialist family holds 4 title codes arranged across 4 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.
What does an Emergency Response Specialist earn in New Jersey?
Published salary data for this family runs from $69,668 at the bottom of Emergency Response Specialist 1 to $155,359 at the top of Emergency Response Specialist 4. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.
Do you need to take an exam to become an Emergency Response Specialist?
Yes for most of the family. 4 of the 4 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.
What qualifications does an Emergency Response Specialist need?
The most common education requirement in this family is a bachelor's degree, named on 4 of the 4 titles. 4 of the titles also require a license or certification. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.
Which agencies employ Emergency Response Specialist staff?
State payroll records show 11 people in this family across 1 agency, with Environmental Protection the largest at 11. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.