N.J.A.C. 4A:4-2 Competitive Examinations
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:4-2, Competitive Examinations: 17 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:4-2.1Announcements and applications
Open competitive announcements go up daily on the Civil Service Commission web site, and that site is also where the applications come from. Promotional announcements carry an extra obligation that matters to anyone trying to show they never heard about an examination. An appointing authority without a web site has to post the announcement conspicuously at every geographic location within the unit scope in State service, or the department in local service, must notify all eligibles by electronic or other means, and must keep a record of both the posting and the notification. Every announcement states at least the title, salary information, minimum qualifications and filing information; open competitive ones also reference duties and responsibilities, and State open competitive ones give the location of the vacancies. Applications are due by 4:00 P.M. on the announced filing date, may be amended at any point before it, and stay confidential unless the Chairperson or designee decides disclosure is in the public interest.
- 4A:4-2.2Types of examinations
An examination here is not necessarily a written test. The Chairperson or designee administers examinations for appointment in the competitive division of the career service, and any one or more of eight things can count: written tests, oral tests, performance tests, physical performance tests, an evaluation of education, training or experience, computer-based tests, assessment exercises, and other appropriate measures of knowledge, skills and abilities. Subject matter specialists may be brought in as special examiners. State or local employees can do that work as part of their official duties during normal working hours with their appointing authority approving, and extra compensation may be provided for the same service outside those hours. Accommodation and waiver for candidates with disabilities is handled separately at 4A:4-2.14.
- 4A:4-2.3Open competitive examinations
Promotion is the default. Vacancies are filled by promotional examination unless the Chairperson or designee decides an open competitive examination is in the best interest of the career service, and that decision has to rest on at least one of five stated conditions: the vacancy is in an entrance level title, there are fewer than three qualified permanent employees in appropriate lower titles in the unit scope, multiple vacancies outrun that pool by a similar margin, a promotional list would be exhausted before present and anticipated vacancies are filled, or the title needs special, technical or professional training not required in lower titles. Applicants must meet every requirement by the announced closing date, including residency under 4A:4-2.11. Municipal Firefighter and Municipal Police Officer applicants must be under 35 on that date, though former law enforcement officers aged 45 or under who resigned in good standing, and those involuntarily separated by layoff at any age, may subtract previous years of service from their actual age.
- 4A:4-2.4Promotional title scope: local service
Local service only; State service has its own scope rule at 4A:4-2.5. Title scope is the answer to who is allowed to compete. Where the promotional title is part of a title series, the examination opens to one of three groups: the next lower in-series title used in the local jurisdiction, the next two lower in-series titles used there, or everyone in the unit scope who meets the open competitive requirements together with those in-series titles. Where the title is not part of a series, it opens to any applicant with a total of one year of permanent service who meets the open competitive requirements. Promotion out of the noncompetitive division into the competitive division has its own five options. Wider scopes may be used where appropriate, including where the appointing authority provisionally promoted somebody without permanent status in the next lower in-series title, and in extraordinary circumstances the Chairperson or designee may set another scope. A jurisdiction can be required to produce ordinances or tables of organization showing which titles it actually uses.
- 4A:4-2.5Promotional title scope: State service
State service, and the rule starts by sorting every title into one of three categories by the education it requires. Professional means a bachelor's or higher degree. Para-professional means at least 60 general college credits or 12 or more specific credits, short of a full degree. Non-professional is below both thresholds. Any of the three may carry a clause substituting experience for education. Whether a promotion stays inside a category or crosses between them decides who competes. Within a category, the examination opens to permanent competitive division employees in the next lower or next two lower in-series titles, or in titles within a specified range of class code levels, or to all permanent competitive division employees meeting the complete open competitive requirements, or to related titles under a plan approved by the Chairperson or designee. Crossing between categories narrows to employees serving in the announced unit scope who meet the complete open competitive requirements or hold an approved bridge title, meaning one the Commission recognises as related to the higher category title in work performed and in knowledge, skills and abilities.
- 4A:4-2.6Eligibility for promotional examination
One year of continuous permanent service, aggregating to a year immediately before the announced closing date, in a title the examination is open to. Aggregate service is calculated the same way seniority is under 4A:4-2.15. In local service the figure is three years for promotion out of an entry level law enforcement or firefighter title, except as a law provides otherwise. You also have to be serving in the announced unit scope in a covered title, meet everything else in the announcement, and have avoided a Performance Assessment Review final rating below Successful, or the equivalent under an approved local evaluation program, in each of the two rating periods before the closing date. Out-of-title work generally cannot be used to qualify or to earn credit, though the Chairperson or designee may permit it for good cause, one stated example being where too few eligible employees would produce an incomplete list. Layoff gets specific treatment: eligibility established before a layoff takes effect survives it, and employees who return to a covered title and unit scope between the filing deadline and the examination date may still file.
- 4A:4-2.7Promotion upon waiver of competitive examination
A promotion can happen without anybody sitting the examination. Once a promotional examination has been announced, the Chairperson or designee may authorise the promotion of a qualified permanent career service employee by regular appointment, with no competitive examination and no eligible list established, but all four conditions have to hold at once. The employee has been successfully tested in the basic skills the promotional title requires. The employee has not failed an examination for that title within the year before the announced closing date, unless they subsequently passed one. The number of interested eligibles exceeds the number of promotional appointments by no more than two. And veterans preference rights are not a factor, which is the condition that closes this route wherever a veteran is in the pool. Veterans preference on promotional lists is governed at 4A:5-2.2.
- 4A:4-2.8Scheduling of examinations
Arrive late and whether you get in depends on what kind of test it is. For written or computer-based examinations, and examinations containing written and performance parts, a candidate who reaches the test room within 15 minutes of the designated time is admitted, unless the examination notice says otherwise. For oral examinations, and those containing oral and performance parts, the window is 30 minutes, and it closes the moment the last scheduled candidate has started. A candidate admitted late still receives the full allotted time to finish. The rest of the section is logistics: examinations may be scheduled for one or more sessions on a Statewide, regional or local basis, candidates are notified in an appropriate manner of time, place and any postponement or cancellation, and jurisdictions operating under Title 11A must furnish sufficient facilities when the Chairperson or designee asks for them.
- 4A:4-2.9Make-up examinations
Two different lists of acceptable reasons, and which one applies depends on the examination. For open competitive and general promotional testing, a make-up may be authorised for Commission or appointing authority error, serious illness or disability with a doctor's certificate, documented serious illness or death in the immediate family, natural disaster, prior vacation or travel plans outside New Jersey and contiguous states that cannot reasonably be changed, certain returns from military service, and other valid reasons. For professional level engineering and public safety promotional examinations, meaning police, fire, correction officer, correctional police officer, sheriff's officer, juvenile detention officer and similar titles, the list shrinks to five: debilitating injury or illness requiring extended convalescence, a death in the immediate family evidenced by a death certificate, a wedding that cannot reasonably be moved, military service returns, and Commission or appointing authority error. The written request is due within five days of the examination date, or within five days of receiving the examination notice where the reason was already known then. A passing make-up score adds the name to the list without disturbing appointments already made.
- 4A:4-2.10Conduct and security of examinations
Bringing a cellphone into the building is a prohibited action, not merely into the test room, and work-issued phones count, as does any type of electronic recording or imaging device. The rest of the prohibited list covers unauthorised persons securing questions or materials, unauthorised persons securing information about the number or identity of applicants before all parts are held and a list issued, identifying an applicant's papers or work where anonymity is required, impersonating an applicant or improperly exchanging applicant numbers, using or attempting to use unauthorised aids, information or assistance including copying from or helping another applicant, participating where that would likely result in physical injury or property damage, and copying, recording or transcribing any question or answer or removing any related material from the examination room. The consequence is stated plainly: disqualification from that examination, possible rejection from future examinations, and punishment as provided by law. Confidentiality of the records themselves is at 4A:4-2.16.
- 4A:4-2.11Residence standards
Two residency requirements can be running at once: the New Jersey principal residence requirement under P.L. 2011, c. 70, which reaches State and local service alike, and whatever a local appointing authority has adopted by ordinance or resolution. Local jurisdictions file that ordinance with the Commission annually and report modifications within 20 days, and a late modification after a list is promulgated can cost them the price of reordering it. For a local requirement, residence means a single legal residence, and six factors decide which one is real: ownership or rental, time actually spent there against other locations, how close the relationships are among the people living there, whether you would stay if the requirement disappeared, what your driver's license, vehicle registration and voter registration say (a post office box is not accepted), and the school district your children attend. Being domiciled in New Jersey is not by itself enough for the State requirement. Appeals run through 4A:4-6.6, and the applicant carries the burden of proving residence.
- 4A:4-2.12Professional qualifications substitution program
Work experience can stand in for education, year for year, but only where the examination has been designated for it. Applicants for designated open competitive or promotional examinations for professional titles may substitute appropriate work experience on a year-for-year basis for specified higher educational requirements. Where a title requires specific coursework or a major field of study, that coursework still has to be successfully completed, so the substitution reaches the level of the degree rather than its subject matter. The Civil Service Commission decides whether prior work experience may be substituted. Examination announcements carry general information on eligibility and use of the program where appropriate, and appointing authorities are required to post information about it conspicuously.
- 4A:4-2.13(Reserved)
Reserved. No rule text is currently published at this citation.
- 4A:4-2.14Accommodation and waiver of examinations for persons with disabilities
Accommodation is asked for on the application itself, by indicating the request there; Commission staff then make reasonable accommodation where appropriate and tell the candidate the arrangements. Waiver is the separate and larger remedy. The Chairperson or designee may waive an examination for an otherwise qualified candidate or provisional whose physical, mental or emotional affliction, injury, dysfunction, impairment or disability makes the testing procedure not practicable, yet does not prevent satisfactory performance of the title under actual conditions of service. A written waiver request has to carry the examination title and symbol number, or the provisional's title and employer, a statement from an appointing authority using the title that the person can perform the duties in actual service, a physician's statement with supporting medical documentation, the history of any earlier application, examination or accommodation for that title, and agreement to undergo further physical or psychological examinations if asked. Where reasonable accommodation can be made, the waiver is denied and the accommodation arranged instead. Where it cannot, the Chairperson or designee decides whether to grant the waiver and what follows: employment or placement on an eligible list, and in appropriate cases seniority.
- 4A:4-2.15Rating of examinations
Performance rating credit is a State service matter. Candidates for State service promotional examinations receive credit for the final PAR rating on file as of the announced closing date, three points for Exceptional down to one for Successful, and where no final rating is on file the period is treated as Successful and credited. Where the supervisor who completed or reviewed a subordinate's rating competes in the same promotional examination, performance ratings are not used as a scoring factor at all. Examinations with more than one part may be rated independently, and failing one part fails the whole examination and forfeits both PAR and seniority credit. Seniority keeps continuous permanent service through paid leaves, listed unpaid leaves including military, educational, personal sick, disability and family leave, and voluntary furloughs, while suspensions, other unpaid leaves and any layoff period are deducted. In local service police and fire examinations, credit for record of service is reduced by disciplinary suspensions in the five years before the closing date. Volunteer firefighters with two or more years of active service add three to ten points to a passing score. Ties are not broken.
- 4A:4-2.16Retention and inspection of examination records
Some of it is public. Most of it is not. Seven categories of examination record are kept until the eligible list expires: the public announcement, all applications, the examination papers and scoring keys, a description of the examination including date held, rating system and any minimum score, the list of eligibles, the failure roster, and other pertinent information. Three are open to public inspection, being the announcement, the examination description and the list of eligibles. Applications are closed to the public, but an appointing authority may inspect one where the application was completed by an eligible, that eligible has been certified to it for appointment, and it has a reasonable suspicion of inconsistent information about qualifications, on condition it does not pass the record to outsiders. The failure roster is closed to the public and open to the appointing authority the list was certified to, on the same condition. Disclosure in breach of either condition may bring sanctions under 4A:10-2.1.
- 4A:4-2.17Application processing fees
Twenty-five dollars per application, open competitive and promotional alike, reduced to 15 dollars for veterans. Law enforcement officer and firefighter examinations carry a separately established fee capped at the cost of developing, procuring and administering the examination, with receipts appropriated back to the Commission for that purpose. Where an announcement lists more than one title area, such as police, sheriff and corrections, a fee is charged for each title area the applicant selects. No fee is charged where the application is filed for placement on a list under 4A:4-4.6A. Open competitive applicants who document that they were receiving General Assistance, Work First New Jersey benefits or Supplemental Security Income as of the closing date are granted a waiver. The fee buys processing and nothing more: it does not guarantee admittance to an examination or appointment to a position, and it is refunded only for untimely filing or cancellation of the examination. Cancellation for lack of eligible applicants, or because no eligible applicant appears, brings no refund.