N.J.A.C. 4A:3-1 Career and Unclassified Services
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:3-1, Career and Unclassified Services: 4 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:3-1.1Career service
Career service is the default and everything else is carved out of it. Every job title is allocated to the career service unless the Commission has put it in the unclassified service or, for State positions, into the Senior Executive Service. Moving a title the other way takes a public hearing first, held to take comment against the unclassified criteria. The part worth holding onto is what happens to the people already there. An incumbent with permanent status in a title that gets reallocated to the unclassified service keeps every career service right for as long as they remain in that title. Accept a different unclassified title and most of that falls away: what is left is the right to a Commission hearing on separation from government service for disciplinary reasons or because of layoff. Staying put and moving up are not the same decision here.
- 4A:3-1.2Divisions within the career service
Two divisions, and which one a title sits in decides whether an examination stands between an appointee and permanent status. Competitive division titles run through the competitive examination procedures. A title goes to the noncompetitive division when the Commission finds permanent appointments appropriate and at least one of three things holds: competitive testing is not practicable given the knowledge and skills involved, ranked eligible lists have not met or are unlikely to meet appointing authority needs because of salary, location, recruitment or working conditions, or immediate appointments are needed for a new legislative program or a major agency reorganisation. Noncompetitive is not a free pass, since appointees still meet the specification minimums and still finish a working test period. Reallocation carries process: administrative review, notice to appointing authorities and negotiations representatives, a written comment period of at least 20 days, and a final decision on the record. Provisionals in the title on the effective date convert to regular appointments that day. An interim noncompetitive designation lasts a year at most.
- 4A:3-1.3Unclassified service
Ten is the ceiling on municipal department heads a single municipality may place in the unclassified service, and it is the hardest number in this section. The rest sets out when a title is unclassified at all: designation under the State statute or the local statute, designation by some other specific statute, a statute providing that incumbents serve a fixed term or at the pleasure of the appointing authority, or a Commission finding that merit and fitness cannot practicably be tested for and that permanent appointments are not appropriate. Two definitions do real work. A municipal department head, where statute has not already fixed the position, is someone whose position was created by ordinance or resolution to perform substantial managerial duties, holding authority over appointment, removal, selection for promotion, and the assignment and work of subordinates, answerable only to the governing body and applicable statutes. Principal executive officer differs by service: in local service a managerial title independent of other executive authority, and in State service someone the Governor appoints with the advice and consent of the Senate.
- 4A:3-1.4Unclassified secretaries and confidential assistants: State service
One and one. In State service a department head, a principal executive officer, a board or a commission may appoint a single unclassified secretary and a single unclassified confidential assistant, and the request to the Chairperson has to arrive with documentation showing that nobody else is already serving in each of those titles there. Boards and commissions face an extra test before they count as an authority that can make these appointments at all: the body must actually administer a statutorily designated function, and it must hold the full power of an appointing authority over its own personnel. Approval runs through a recommendation by the Chairperson to the Civil Service Commission, and the appointment is recorded in the Commission minutes. The paper trail is the mechanism, because a one-per-authority limit only holds if somebody is counting.