N.J.A.C. 4A:3-5.5 Federal fair labor standards applicable to more than 40 hours in a workweek for 35, 40 and NE titles: State service

What your work week code means for your overtime

Check which service you are in before anything else. In local service, overtime compensation is paid under standards the appointing authority prepares and administers in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, which means your employer's own written policy and whatever your agreement says. This subchapter, including the section you are reading, is State service. A county or municipal work week code still describes your schedule, but it does not carry these payment rules with it.

Two distinctions produce the codes. Fixed workweek titles have consistently regular schedules under direct supervision and are set at 35 or 40 hours. Non-limited titles have irregular or variable hours. Cutting across that, a covered position is subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act and an exempt position is excluded from it. That gives 35 and 40 for covered fixed titles, 3E and 4E for exempt fixed titles, NE for a covered non-limited title, and NL and N4 for exempt non-limited titles.

This section is the over-40 rule for covered titles. Employees in 35, 40 and NE titles are eligible for cash payment or compensatory time off, at the department head's discretion with the Chairperson's approval, for time worked beyond 40 hours in a week. Compensatory time in place of cash is not simply the employer's choice: it has to be permitted by a negotiated agreement or memorandum of understanding, or, for employees without a negotiations representative, by an agreement or understanding reached before the overtime work is performed. Cash is one and one-half times the regular rate. Accrued compensatory time caps at 240 hours, or 480 for employees engaged in public safety, emergency response or seasonal activity.

Base salary and regular rate are not the same number, and which one you are paid on depends on which section you fall under. Base salary is your rate of pay exclusive of any additional payments or allowances. Regular rate is the hourly proration of annual base salary plus the fair market value of goods and facilities received as part of wages, and for covered titles it includes clothing allowances unless the allowance is for prescribed clothing the employer requires; employees in NE titles are treated as having a 40-hour workweek for that proration. Over 40 hours in a covered title is paid on the regular rate. The 35-to-40 band for a 35-hour title, and the exempt fixed titles at 3E and 4E, are paid at one and one-half times the hourly proration of base salary instead.

NL and N4 are the codes that disappoint. Those employees have no entitlement to cash overtime compensation. What is available is comparable time off for unusual work time at the appointing authority's discretion, capped at one hour for each hour, and not available at all to commissioners and department heads, assistant and deputy commissioners, division directors or equivalents, and unrepresented exempt titles with salary ranges at or above range 32. An exceptional emergency declared by an agency head is the narrow exception. Appendix A to the subchapter sets out every code and its treatment in one table.

One thing worth knowing if the code looks wrong: an individual position may be exempt even when it sits in a covered title, and both position and title designations can be appealed. Other disputes about overtime payments go through the grievance process instead.

Related on this site: /salary, /jurisdiction/state

Written by the NJ Civil Service Navigator editorial team. Every statement here traces to the rules cited on this page. It is not legal advice, and a collective agreement may change how these rules apply to you.