N.J.A.C. 4A:2-4 Termination at End of Working Test Period
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:2-4, Termination at End of Working Test Period: 3 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:2-4.1Notice of termination
The notice that ends a working test period, and the timing rule that can hand you permanent status. An employee terminated, or returned to a former permanent title, at the conclusion of a working test period for unsatisfactory performance must be given written notice in person or by certified mail, and that notice has to tell them they may request a hearing before the Commission within 20 days of receiving it. The service window is narrow: no more than five working days before the last day of the working test period, and no more than five working days after it. A notice served outside that window creates a presumption that the employee has attained permanent status. Late notice is therefore worth checking the dates on carefully.
- 4A:2-4.2Time for appeal
Twenty days from receiving the written notice of termination or return to a former permanent title, in writing, to the Civil Service Commission. That is the deadline and there is no discretion built into it. The one relief valve is for the situation where the appointing authority never gave the notice 4A:2-4.1 requires: then the appeal must be filed within a reasonable time instead, with no fixed count of days. That relief depends on the notice actually being absent rather than merely late, and a late notice carries its own consequence under 4A:2-4.1, so establishing which of the two happened is the first thing to do.
- 4A:2-4.3Civil Service Commission hearing
The hardest sentence in this part of the code sits here: the employee has the burden of proof to establish that the action was in bad faith. Not that the performance assessment was wrong, not that it was unfair, but that the appointing authority acted in bad faith, and it is on you to prove it. That is a materially higher bar than a major discipline appeal, where the appointing authority has to justify its own action. The appeal itself is processed like any other Commission matter under 4A:2-2.9. If bad faith is found, the remedy is a new working test period, full or shortened, along with other appropriate remedies under the general remedies rule.