NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the
internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-1871-18T3
IN THE MATTER OF
COMMUNICATION
OPERATOR, SECURED
FACILITIES, DEPARTMENT
OF CORRECTIONS,
HUDSON COUNTY
Submitted April 28, 2020 - Decided August 27, 2020
Before Judges Accurso and Rose.
On appeal from the New Jersey Civil Service
Commission, Docket No. 2019-202.
William D. Sayers, attorney for appellant Hudson
County PBA Local 109.
Chasen Lamparello Mallon & Capuzzo, PC, attorneys
for respondent County of Hudson (Cindy N.
Vogelman, of counsel and on the brief; Qing Hua Guo,
on the brief).
Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney for
respondent Civil Service Commission (Pamela N.
Ullman, Deputy Attorney General, on the statement in
lieu of brief).
PER CURIAM
Hudson County PBA Local 109 appeals from a final decision of the
Civil Service Commission on an enforcement request by its Division of
Agency Services relating to the assignment of duties to civilian employees in
the Hudson County jail. We affirm, substantially for the reasons expressed by
the Commission in its clear and comprehensive decision of November 21,
2018.
This job classification dispute has its genesis in Hudson County's closure
of its juvenile detention facility in 2015. When Hudson County shuttered the
facility, a number of juvenile detention officers were transferred to the county
jail to perform civilian duties. Shortly thereafter, PBA Local 109, the
collective bargaining unit representing county correction officers, complained
to the Civil Service Commission's Division of Agency Services that the
transferred employees were performing custodial duties appropriately
performed only by county correction officers. Specifically, the union
complained that former juvenile detention officers working in the control room
at the jail as communications operators, were performing tasks, such as
"observation of the entrance area of the facility" and "observation and
regulation of inmate movements," reserved to corrections officers.
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Agency Services wrote to the County advising that those duties, which
"mirror the Examples of Work contained in the job specification for the title of
County Correction Officer," "must be performed by custody staff, i.e.,
individuals in the county correction officer ranks," and directed it to
"immediately remove" such duties from staff serving in civilian titles. Agency
Services warned that failure to do so would result in referral of the matter to
the Civil Service Commission for enforcement.
The County quickly pushed back, asserting that the communications
operators in the control room only opened the doors and gates of the facility at
the request of a correction officer or supervisor, and thus those civilian
employees were not performing tasks reserved to corrections officers.
In 2018, the union again complained to Agency Services about the work
of the communications operators, submitting a certification from the president
of PBA Local 109, a corrections officer in the facility, that corrections officers
traditionally serve as communications operators in the jails throughout the
State, and that he had "personally observed the communications operators
control the movements of inmates, civilian personnel and uniformed staff from
the control rooms by simply opening or closing doors without any Orders from
uniform or supervisory staff." That complaint prompted Agency Services to
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file this enforcement action with the Civil Service Commission requesting that
the Commission enforce the Agency Services' 2016 decision precluding the
"routine assignment of inmate control to Communications Operators, Secured
Facilities."
In response to the union's allegations, the County submitted a
certification from the Director of the County's Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation about the job duties of the former juvenile detention officers
now serving as communications operators, secured facilities. He noted the job
description for those communications operators expressly provides that they
perform "a variety of technical clerical and communications functions" under
"the direction of a custody supervisor or other supervisory official in the
Department of Corrections facility." Included as "examples of work," the job
description states: "Opens and closes security doors/gates and distributes
security and other equipment other than firearms, chemical agents or
mechanical restraints under the supervision of a custodial supervisor."
The director averred that the Department's policy and post orders were
"in full conformance" with the job description and the Agency Services
supervisory protocol from 2016. The Director expressly noted that
[a]ll inmate movement is conducted with the approval
and under the supervision of a law enforcement officer
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(corrections officer). The communication operators
merely operate the mechanics of pushing a button
and[] documenting such movement in the log book.
Policy CUS.03:III.B.1(c) provides, in pertinent part:
". . . [c]ell and housing doors are only to be opened at
the direction of the Housing Unit Officer or
Supervisor." Untrained civilians do not act in a
supervisory or directory capacity in the movement of
inmates throughout the facility. They are supervised
and "greenlit" by law enforcement officers
(corrections officers).
District 1199J, the union representing "the title of Communication
Operator, Secured Facilities in Hudson County," submitted a letter agreeing
with the County that the individuals serving as communications operators in
Hudson's county jail "do not open doors without orders from uniform or
supervisory staff" and "do not interact with inmates or detainees." District
1199J asserted the communications operators were "only performing functions
within the scope of their job specifications," which "do not interfere with the
duties of correction officers in any way."
PBA Local 109 submitted an additional certification from the president
of the union averring that the control room posts currently staffed by the
civilian communications operators in the Hudson jail were "traditionally"
staffed "by corrections officers in Hudson County prior to 2015" and the
closing of the juvenile detention facility. The president attested to his
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understanding "that no other County or State jail facilities in the State of New
Jersey currently employ civilian Communications Officers in control rooms
without trained corrections officers also physically present in the control
rooms." He claimed that "[i]n the dozens of times" he'd worked an overtime
shift on a housing unit in 2018, he'd "never been contacted by a control room
Communications Operator to ask for authorization or specific direction for
opening a door for an inmate" and that "the volume of inmate movement in the
facility on a daily basis" made such direction "not practical." He again averred
that the communications officers in the Hudson jail "are not contacting the
correction officers before they open doors in the facility" and "are in fact
controlling and monitoring inmate movement in the facility."
After having considered those submissions, the Commission found
Hudson County's policies and post orders were entirely consistent with the job
specification for Communications Operator, Secured Facilities. Relying on a
1996 decision by the former Commissioner of Personnel,1 In the Matter of
Senior Corr. Officer & Commc'ns Officer, Dep't of Corr., Commissioner of
Personnel (Sept. 20, 1996), ruling that the "opening and closing of security
1
The Department of Personnel was abolished by amendment to N.J.S.A.
11A:11-2, effective June 29, 2012, which also continued and transferred
certain powers to the Civil Service Commission.
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doors and gates upon orders or supervision of a custodial supervisor are not
inappropriately assigned to the Communications Operator job classification,"
the Commission found N.J.A.C. 10A:3-3,1 did not preclude civilian personnel
from performing those tasks at the direction of a custodial supervisor.
As to the charge that the communications operators at the Hudson jail
were opening doors on their own initiative without such supervision, the
Commission found such acts would be inconsistent with Hudson's policy, that
the union had failed to provide any "specific examples of such behavior," had
never complained of any specific violations of the policy or ever grieved the
issue, and had "presented no evidence that Hudson's policies are not consistent
with the duties that can be performed by a Communications Operator[],
Secured Facilities." The Commission ordered the County to "continue strictly
following its policy to ensure that Communication Operators, Secured
Facilities, under supervision on a custodial supervisor, open and close
doors/gates in the facility."
PBA Local 109 appeals, arguing that the commission failed to address
"whether the title of communications operator should be permitted to be
assigned to the control rooms of an adult corrections facility, as such
assignment necessarily entails performance of custodial duties." Somewhat
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undercutting that first point, the union also contends the Commission erred in
relying "on an unpublished and undisclosed 1996 administrative letter ruling to
improperly endorse the assignment of civilian communication operators in
prison control rooms." It also argues the decision was arbitrary and capricious
"as it did not address the facts and arguments submitted by [PBA Local 109]
regarding the title of communications operator, secured facilities," that it "was
not supported by substantial credible evidence in the record, as the record
showed that communications operators were performing prohibited custodial
duties in violation of the commission’s May 5, 2016 order" and, finally, that
"the Commission's decision was improperly issued based on written
submissions, as the record demonstrated material disputed issues of fact tha t
should have been referred to the Office of Administrative Law for a plenary
hearing." Our review of the record convinces us that none of these arguments
is of sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-
3(e)(1)(E).
Courts, of course, "have only a limited role to play in reviewing the
actions of other branches of government. In light of the executive function of
administrative agencies, judicial capacity to review administrative actions is
severely limited." George Harms Constr. Co. v. N.J. Tpk. Auth., 137 N.J. 8,
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27 (1994) (citing Gloucester Cty. Welfare Bd. v. N.J. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 93
N.J. 384, 390 (1983)). A final decision by the Civil Service Commission
cannot be overturned on appeal unless it is affirmatively shown to be arbitrary,
capricious, or unreasonable, or not supported by substantial credible evidence
in the record as a whole. Karins v. Atl. City, 152 N.J. 532, 540 (1998).
Applying those standards provides us no basis to interfere in the Commission's
determination that the "opening and closing of security doors and gates upon
orders or supervision of a custodial supervisor are not inappropriately assigned
to the Communications Operator job classification."
The Commission did nothing more here than determine that Hudson
County's policy and post orders regarding civilian employees in the
communications operator, secured facilities title working in the control room
of the adult correctional facility under the supervision of custody officers was
appropriate and complied both with N.J.A.C. 10A:31-1 to -11, the regulations
governing adult county correctional facilities and its prior decision addressing
the same issue in 1996. The union offers no reason to impugn the agency's
obviously long-standing position that there is nothing inappropriate about
communication operators opening and closing the doors and gates from the
control room of a county jail under the supervision of custodial staff.
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The Commission's determination that the union did not present sufficient
evidence that the County was violating its policy by permitting
communications officers to operate the doors of the facility without
supervision by the custodial staff was not unreasonable, given the union's
failure to present specific examples of any such violation. The decision, of
course, does not preclude the union from presenting such evidence in the
future, either by referring any violations for investigation and possible
discipline or by filing a grievance in the ordinary course.
As PBA Local 109 has not affirmatively shown the Commission's
decision that civilians serving as communication operators in Hudson's county
jail may appropriately operate the gates and doors of that facility under the
supervision of the custody staff to be arbitrary or unreasonable or lacking
support in the record, we affirm.
Affirmed.
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