N.J.A.C. 4A:2-6 Resignations
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:2-6, Resignations: 3 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:2-6.1Resignation in good standing
Fourteen days notice, written or verbal, and a permanent career service employee who gives it resigns in good standing. The appointing authority can consent to less. Two features cut against changing your mind afterwards. The resignation is treated as accepted the moment the notice is received, and a request to rescind it before the effective date works only if the appointing authority consents; the rule gives the employee no right to withdraw. The exception is a resignation that was not really voluntary. Where it is alleged to have been the result of duress or coercion, an appeal may be made to the Commission under 4A:2-1.1, which requires the appeal in writing and, unless a different period is stated, within 20 days of notice or of when the employee reasonably should have known. Failing to give the required notice has its own consequence, set out at 4A:2-6.2.
- 4A:2-6.2Resignation not in good standing
You can land here without ever writing a resignation letter. Absence from duty for five or more consecutive business days without a superior approval counts as abandoning the position, and so does failing to return for five or more consecutive business days after an approved leave ends. Both are recorded as a resignation not in good standing, though the rule adds that approval of an absence and a request to extend leave shall not be unreasonably denied. The third route is quitting without the 14 days notice 4A:2-6.1 requires. None of this is unchallengeable. The employee must be given notice and an opportunity for a departmental hearing under 4A:2-2.5, then a Final Notice and a right of appeal to the Commission under 4A:2-2.8, the same machinery as major discipline, and is in unpaid status while the departmental decision is pending. If the resignation is reversed, the remedies at 4A:2-2.10 apply, and either the appointing authority or the Commission may modify it to an appropriate penalty or to a resignation in good standing. That last option matters afterwards: 4A:4-7.10 limits regular reemployment consideration to permanent employees who resigned in good standing, received a general resignation, retired, or voluntarily demoted.
- 4A:2-6.3General resignation
A third category, and it exists only inside a settlement. A general resignation is neither a resignation in good standing nor a resignation not in good standing. It arises in one circumstance: as the agreed resolution of a disciplinary action that the employee has appealed to the appointing authority or to the Commission under 4A:2-2. The settlement has to state clearly in writing that the parties agreed to a general resignation as the resolution of the disciplinary appeal. The final line closes the obvious loophole. An appointing authority may not unilaterally impose a general resignation on an employee. As for what the label carries later, this section says nothing, but 4A:4-3.1 puts former permanent employees who received a general resignation on the regular reemployment list alongside those who resigned in good standing.