N.J.A.C. 4A:3-4 Compensation
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:3-4, Compensation: 21 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:3-4.1General provisions
Compensation is centralised in State service and devolved in local service, and this section is where that split is set. In local service each appointing authority writes its own compensation plan, paying employees in reasonable relationship to their job titles, files a current copy with a Commission representative, and files any modification within 20 days of adopting it. Where a local plan establishes a salary range for a title, base salary may not fall below the minimum or rise above the maximum of that range. In State service the Civil Service Commission establishes and maintains the plan itself, setting pay rates and a series of salary ranges, and each career and unclassified employee is paid within the range or at the rate assigned to their title. Both services are auditable. A Commission representative may examine payroll records for compliance, on site or by requesting certified payrolls, and in State service the appointing authority signs a certification that the people listed actually rendered the service and that Commission approval of their employment has been secured or is being secured.
- 4A:3-4.2Job evaluation: State service
The arithmetic turning a class code into a salary range, and it depends on the workweek code. Every new State title is evaluated under the New Jersey Job Content Evaluation System and given a class code, and existing titles are reevaluated the same way. The class code is not the salary range. For NL and NE titles the range equals the class code. For 35 hour and 3E titles it sits one range lower. For 40 hour, 4E and N4 titles it sits one range higher. For 10 month titles it sits three ranges lower. The example printed in the rule: class code 18 becomes range 18 for NL and NE, 17 for 35 and 3E, 19 for 40, 4E and N4, and 15 for a 10 month title. The Chairperson may instead designate a title no-range, meaning no class code at all, or assign it a single rate, and may attach restrictions to salary payments for such titles.
- 4A:3-4.3Job reevaluation requests and appeals: State service
The unit of analysis is what separates this from a position review request. A job reevaluation concerns the class code assigned to a whole title, so an employee or authorised employee representative appealing one has to produce evidence that the change in job content affects every employee in the title, not just the appellant. The appeal also needs a written narrative identifying the substantive change in job content or in other evaluation factors, plus a revised job specification marked to show the changes. It goes first to the agency representative, who has 10 days either to ask for more information or to forward it. A Commission representative then decides within 60 days of receiving everything required. Appeal to the Commission itself runs 20 days from receipt of that decision, may be decided on the written record or referred to an independent salary reviewer, and considers nothing that was not argued below. Where reevaluation is approved it takes effect from the first full pay period after the Commission received the fully documented request or appeal.
- 4A:3-4.4Salary rates for initial appointments: State service
Step four is the ceiling on a starting salary. An appointing authority may place a new State employee anywhere up to and including the fourth step of the salary range for the title, and new here means somebody with no immediate prior State service with that particular appointing authority. Arriving from elsewhere in State service without a break is treated differently: an employee who separated from another State appointing authority, a State college, Rutgers, the New Jersey Institute of Technology or the University of Medicine and Dentistry and was hired without interruption may be placed up to the step they would have reached had they been employed in the new agency all along. The third mechanism reaches people already in the job. An authorised hiring rate is a set starting salary the Chairperson establishes for particular titles, and when one is established or changed, current employees in the title paid below it are advanced to it while those already at it may be advanced by the Chairperson.
- 4A:3-4.5Anniversary dates: State service
An anniversary date is the biweekly pay period in which an employee becomes eligible for a salary increase, if performance warrants it and their place in the range allows it. Eligibility, not entitlement, and the wording carries both conditions. The default cycle is 26 full pay periods: the initial anniversary date is the first pay period after 26 full pay periods have run from appointment, and years containing 27 pay periods are handled by a schedule the Commission issues. One step is longer than the rest. An employee sitting on the eighth step becomes eligible for the ninth only after 39 pay periods. Anniversary dates move for several reasons, including an advancement pay adjustment that can restart the count from the date of the adjustment, and time spent in non-pay status. Trainees, apprentices, recruits and interns get a fresh 26 pay period count from the date of regular appointment to the primary title. Intermittent employees count hours instead, 1827 or 2088 depending on the workweek code.
- 4A:3-4.6Anniversary date change when employee is in non-pay status: State service
Nine kinds of non-pay time do not push an increment date back, and they are worth knowing by name: military leave, educational leave, the two months when a 10 month title is not scheduled to work, days a part-time employee is not scheduled, leave without pay after sick leave injury is exhausted, leave without pay while receiving workers compensation, leave without pay under a voluntary alternative to layoff program, voluntary furlough, and furlough extension leave. Everything else in non-pay status, suspensions included, comes out of the time counted toward an annual increment. The arithmetic is one pay period of delay for each full pay period in non-pay status, or one pay period for every 10 working days accumulated as scattered non-pay days across a calendar year. Scattered days totalling fewer than 10 expire rather than carrying into the next year. The appointing authority has to notify both the Chairperson and the employee in writing when the date changes.
- 4A:3-4.7Determining types of pay adjustments: State service
A four-line table that routes everything else in this subchapter. When an employee moves to a different title, including a move that only changes the workweek or the work year, the class code decides which pay rule applies. The same class code makes it a lateral adjustment. A higher class code makes it an advancement, the category covering promotion, upward title reevaluation and other advancements. A lower class code splits in two, one rule for demotion and another for downward title reevaluation. Notice what is being compared. It is class codes, not salary ranges and not actual dollars, which is how a move can raise the pay and still count as lateral.
- 4A:3-4.8Lateral pay adjustments: State service
Same step, different money. A lateral pay adjustment happens when an employee moves to a title carrying the same class code, and the rule places them on the same numbered step in the new title range as the step they occupied in the old one. The anniversary date does not move. Because a salary range is derived from the class code together with the workweek code, a lateral move that changes the workweek changes the range and therefore the dollars. The worked example in the rule takes someone on step four of range A10 in a 35 hour title to a 40 hour title at the same class code, landing them on step four of range A12 and a larger salary. That employee has not been promoted. Where the old salary sat between steps, the extra amount is converted to a percentage of the old increment and reapplied as the same percentage of the new one.
- 4A:3-4.9Advancement pay adjustments: State service
Two tiers of raise, and four months of service decides which one applies. The generous formula gives at least one increment in the old title range plus enough to reach the next higher step in the new range. It covers a promotion following or subject to a promotional examination, an employee whose title was reevaluated to a higher class code, and other advancements only where the Chairperson finds the employee served continuously in the lower title for at least four months immediately before the effective date and that the service gave significant preparation and training for the higher title. Miss those conditions and the placement is simply the step that is the same or next higher than the current salary. Workweek and work year adjustments come first: moving from a 35 hour to a 40 hour title shifts the range two places, and moving from a 10 month to a 12 month work year shifts it three. The anniversary date survives a small raise but resets at two increments or more, and freezes at steps eight and nine. A collective negotiations agreement can displace all of this.
- 4A:3-4.10Demotional pay adjustments: State service
One word separates a disciplinary demotion from every other kind. Both begin by cutting one increment in the higher range. A disciplinary demotion then lands the employee on the step in the lower range equal to or next lower than that reduced figure, while a non-disciplinary demotion lands on the step equal to or next higher. The gentler treatment is conditional: the employee must have served at least 12 months in the higher title and must either have held the lower title before, be demoted in lieu of layoff, or have the Chairperson find that the higher service gave significant preparation and training for the lower. Otherwise the salary is reconstructed as though the employee had been in the lower title all along. A demotion in lieu of removal for lost qualifications, the example given is a truck driver whose licence is suspended, carries a return path at the step held before the demotion. Non-disciplinary demotions below the class code of a permanent title require 45 days notice.
- 4A:3-4.11Downward title reevaluation pay adjustments: State service
Red circled is the term to know. When a title is reevaluated down to a lower class code, or eliminated with its incumbents moved into a title at a lower class code, nobody base salary is cut. What changes is what happens next. The portion of salary sitting above the nearest lower step in the new range is carried as extra salary until the anniversary date, and then the employee moves up one step instead of receiving the normal performance increment, so the raise is absorbed rather than paid. An employee whose base salary already exceeds the maximum step of the lower range is red circled, holding at that figure until the range maximum is increased to meet it. Two timing protections apply. The reevaluation takes effect no sooner than the first pay period 60 days after the determination, and affected employees and their negotiations representatives receive at least 45 days notice of the reduction in range before that date.
- 4A:3-4.12Movement of employees from no-range or single rate titles to titles having salary ranges: State service
Single rate and no-range titles sit outside the step ladder, so moving into a title that has one needs a conversion rule. Two conditions must be met for the favourable version: the Commission must find that service in the no-range or single rate title gave the employee significant experience and training for the range title, and the employee must have served in the former title for four months or more. Meet both and the salary goes to the step equal to or next above the old rate, with the anniversary date set to the pay period when an increase would have fallen due in the old title. Miss either and the salary is reconstructed as though the employee had been in the range title from the day they entered the no-range one, and it can never come out higher than the no-range salary. A base salary above the new maximum step is red circled. Appointments from a Tentative Title, and appointments to a trainee title, are handled by their own sections.
- 4A:3-4.13Salaries of employees whose annual salaries are not on a step in their salary range: State service
Sitting between two steps is a resolvable state, not a permanent one. An employee whose base salary does not fall on any step of their salary range keeps that salary. The excess over the nearest step below is carried separately as extra salary, and at the next anniversary date the employee moves up one step in place of the ordinary performance increment, which quietly consumes the difference rather than adding to it. Where base salary already exceeds the top of the range, the employee is red circled, holding at that figure until the range maximum catches up. The Chairperson may provide otherwise. Two neighbouring sections apply this same mechanism to particular triggers, a downward title reevaluation and a move out of a no-range title; this one is the general case.
- 4A:3-4.14Movement of employees to trainee titles from titles having higher pay rates: State service
Stepping down into a trainee title need not mean a pay cut, but keeping the salary is the appointing authority option rather than the employee right. An employee with permanent status, or with at least six months of continuous service, may be allowed to hold their existing salary on appointment to a trainee title. It stays there until one of three things happens: the trainee title own rate overtakes it, the employee finishes the training period and moves into the primary title, or the employee is advanced to a higher title. At advancement to the primary title two figures are calculated, one by reconstructing the salary as though the employee had continued in their permanent title throughout the training period and one by the normal trainee advancement, and the employee receives the greater. A ceiling still applies, since the salary may not exceed the maximum step of the primary title.
- 4A:3-4.15Salaries for employees appointed to tentative title positions: State service
A tentative title is paid against a range that has not been finalised. While a new title request is pending, the Chairperson recommends an initial range from the request materials, and a new employee may be started anywhere up to the fourth step of it. Current agency employees moving into the position are adjusted under the rules that would apply if the title really were compensated at that range. The exposure sits in what happens when the evaluation finishes. If the final evaluated range comes in lower than the recommended one, the affected salaries are handled as a downward title reevaluation, meaning base pay holds while the excess is absorbed at the next anniversary rather than paid on top. Anniversary dates run from the date of appointment to the tentative title itself, not from whenever the permanent title is finally approved.
- 4A:3-4.16Salaries of employees on military leave during a trainee period: State service
Military leave during a trainee period is bridged rather than penalised, and the rule works on three fronts. On return, a regularly appointed employee in a trainee title is paid at the six months rate provided the total time in the title, on the job and on leave together, comes to six months or more, so the leave counts toward reaching that rate. After the full 12 months of trainee service on the job, including the required working test period, the employee advances to the primary title at the salary they would have been receiving had the leave never happened. And the personnel record is written backwards: seniority in every pertinent title is recorded retroactive to the dates it would have been gained without the military service.
- 4A:3-4.17Salaries and anniversary dates for employees appointed from a special reemployment list: State service
The phrase governing this section is most beneficial to the employee, and it recurs. Somebody recalled from a special reemployment list into the same title they held when laid off receives the step they were on at the layoff, or the figure produced by the alternative calculation, whichever comes out better. Recalled into a different title, they get the better of two computations: the step and range they would have had if appointed to that title on the day of the reduction in force, or, where they have been working in another title since, an ordinary lateral, advancement or demotional adjustment from where they are now. Anniversary dates are reconstructed back to the layoff date and then carried forward by the pay periods still needed. One boundary closes the loop, since none of this may produce a salary greater than the employee would have received had the layoff never happened. Recalled unclassified and provisional employees get the same treatment where a collective agreement provides for it.
- 4A:3-4.18Salaries and anniversary dates for employees appointed from a regular reemployment list: State service
Set this beside the special reemployment list rule and the difference is discretion. Nothing here is fixed at the most beneficial figure. Someone who has left State employment and is appointed from a regular reemployment list receives an anniversary date based on the new appointment date, and may be paid up to the step they held in their prior permanent title, but only at the request of the appointing authority. Up to means the appointing authority can offer less. A person reappointed to a title other than their prior permanent one may be paid up to the step they would have reached had they been appointed to that title on the date they separated. Someone who is still a State employee when appointed from the list is handled by the ordinary lateral, advancement, demotion and downward reevaluation rules instead, unless the appointing authority asks to use the more generous route. Where the title was reevaluated after separation, the salary is set by reconstruction.
- 4A:3-4.19Other forms of compensation: State service
Twenty eight words that mostly point elsewhere. Four kinds of pay sit outside the salary range machinery of this subchapter: how pay is computed for temporary employees, extra compensation on special projects, emergency rates, and other allowances to employees. None of the four is set out in the rule itself. What the rule does is oblige the Chairperson to issue annual updates to the Compensation Plan covering them, so the operative figures live in that document rather than in the code. Special project rates and emergency condition rates also surface in the overtime subchapter, which sets out the circumstances in which they can be authorised.
- 4A:3-4.20Retroactive pay: State service
Two groups collect on a retroactive personnel action and everybody else is excluded. The general requirement is to remain on a State payroll on the date the retroactive payment is made. The single carve-out covers employees who retire or die during the period the retroactivity covers, so leaving through retirement or death partway through does not forfeit the money. Anyone who resigned, was separated, or otherwise came off the payroll before the payment date falls outside the rule as written. Thirty six words, and all of it turns on timing rather than on who earned the pay.
- 4A:3-4.21Salary overpayments: State service
Being overpaid by mistake does not automatically mean repaying all of it on the payroll terms. The Civil Service Commission may waive repayment of an erroneous salary overpayment in whole or in part, or leave the debt standing and adjust the repayment schedule instead. Three factors are listed for that decision: whether the circumstances and amount were such that the employee could reasonably have been unaware of the error, whether the overpayment resulted from a specific administrative error rather than mere delay in processing a change in pay status, and whether the repayment terms would cause economic hardship. Either the employee or the appointing authority may request a waiver, and the request travels through the procedure for written record appeals.