Department profile · Sussex County
Hardyston Township Police Department
Reported as: Hardyston Twp PDMunicipal police
Jurisdiction context
Not a civil service jurisdiction
This department is not among the NJCSC Appendix A jurisdictions, so major discipline here follows a different statutory track (generally N.J.S.A. 40A:14 for municipal police), with appeals that usually go to the Superior Court rather than the Civil Service Commission.
See the context on non-civil-service departments.
Reflects the NJCSC Appendix A roster as of 2026-07-04. Context only, not legal advice.
In brief
Hardyston Township Police Department, municipal police in Sussex County, reported 6 internal affairs investigations in 2025 and 4 officers named in those cases. The rate of 150 per 100 officers matches the Sussex County median of 150 and runs above the 125.9 municipal median. Reading that comparison takes care: a higher rate can signal more misconduct or a department that logs a larger share of the complaints brought to it. One of the 6 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Theft and Other Departmental Rule Violation were the leading allegation categories, with Demeanor also appearing.
Three major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2023, 2024 and 2025. Hardyston Township received an F on the report card, at the 100th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.
Written by this site strictly from the figures on this page; every number is cited below.
Officers named in IA cases, 2025
4[1]
Distinct officers in that year's IA investigations, not total staffing
IA investigations, 2025
6[1]
Incidents, 2025
6[1]
Major discipline records
3
All years, 2020-2025
Staffing
As reported by the department to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) census, full-time personnel as of October 31 each year. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure above; see the methodology.
Sworn officers, 2025
20[6]
58 years reported
| Year | sworn officers |
|---|---|
| 1968 | 1 |
| 1969 | 3 |
| 1970 | 3 |
| 1971 | 6 |
| 1972 | 7 |
| 1973 | 8 |
| 1974 | 8 |
| 1975 | 9 |
| 1976 | 9 |
| 1977 | 9 |
| 1978 | 7 |
| 1979 | 8 |
| 1980 | 9 |
| 1981 | 9 |
| 1982 | 9 |
| 1983 | 9 |
| 1984 | 9 |
| 1985 | 11 |
| 1986 | 11 |
| 1987 | 11 |
| 1988 | 12 |
| 1989 | 12 |
| 1990 | 11 |
| 1991 | 14 |
| 1992 | 13 |
| 1993 | 14 |
| 1994 | 13 |
| 1995 | 14 |
| 1996 | 14 |
| 1997 | 15 |
| 1998 | 16 |
| 1999 | 15 |
| 2000 | 15 |
| 2001 | 16 |
| 2002 | 16 |
| 2003 | 17 |
| 2004 | 17 |
| 2005 | 19 |
| 2006 | 19 |
| 2007 | 21 |
| 2008 | 20 |
| 2009 | 19 |
| 2010 | 19 |
| 2011 | 18 |
| 2012 | 18 |
| 2013 | 21 |
| 2014 | 19 |
| 2015 | 20 |
| 2016 | 18 |
| 2017 | 19 |
| 2018 | 18 |
| 2019 | 18 |
| 2020 | 17 |
| 2021 | 20 |
| 2022 | 20 |
| 2023 | 20 |
| 2024 | 20 |
| 2025 | 20 |
How Hardyston Township Police Department's sworn staffing compares with its real peer group (same agency type, similar size band), not an assumed bell curve.
Peer group: Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=166)
| Range | Agencies |
|---|---|
| 14–16 | 17 |
| 16–18 | 20 |
| 18–20 | 27 |
| 20–22 | 16 |
| 22–24 | 26 |
| 24–26 | 24 |
| 26–28 | 17 |
| 28–30 | 19 |
Hardyston Township Police Department: 20 sworn officers: 41st percentile among Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=166).
The match between this FBI record and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.
Officer pay and school-staff pay
County comparisonA separate dataset from the discipline records above: NJ Treasury pension salaries as of March 31, 2026, for the 19 active Hardyston Township Police Department officers in the file.
Median local school staff
$72,444
HARDYSTON TOWNSHIP BD OF ED, 75 TPAF members
Against the local district
1.96x
Median officer to median local school staff
Against the county
1.63x
Median officer to Sussex County school-staff median
Military surplus equipment (1033 program)
No 1033 transfers recorded. No surplus-equipment transfers appear for this agency under a high-confidence name match in the Defense Logistics Agency's file as of 2026-06-30. That can mean the agency received nothing through the program, or that a recipient name in the federal file did not confidently match this department. See the methodology for how the match is made, or the statewide 1033 overview for how the program spreads across New Jersey.
Internal affairs investigations by year
counts
| Category | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2023 | 3 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2025 | 6 |
Incidents
6 in 2025
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 3 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2025 | 6 |
Officers on IA rows
6 in 2025
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | not reported |
| 2022 | not reported |
| 2023 | not reported |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2025 | 6 |
Computed by this site from the two figures the agency reports each year. Not a misconduct rate: it describes how an agency resolved what it investigated.
share of total · 5 reported years
| Year | share of total |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 33.333 |
| 2025 | 16.667 |
Statewide, 19.5 percent of investigations reported a sustained complaint in 2025. How dispositions break down statewide.
Complaint mix, 2025
Most serious allegation per investigation, as categorized by the reporting agency. Officer-level rows list 6 officers involved.
Most serious allegation
| Theft | 2 |
|---|---|
| Other Departmental Rule Violation | 2 |
| Demeanor | 1 |
| False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal) | 1 |
Statewide category pages: Theft · Other Departmental Rule Violation · Demeanor · False Documentation/Falsifying A Report (Non-Criminal)
Internal disposition
| not provided | 3 |
|---|---|
| Unfounded | 2 |
| Sustained | 1 |
Allegations by year, 2021 to 2025
Other Departmental Rule Violation
6 of 16
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 1 |
| 2024 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2 |
Theft
6 of 16
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2 |
| 2024 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2 |
Demeanor
1 of 16
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 0 |
| 2025 | 1 |
Differential Treatment
1 of 16
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 1 |
| 2025 | 0 |
Other (2 categories)
2 of 16
| Year | counts |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 1 |
| 2025 | 1 |
Against peers, 2025
How this grade was built →| Hardyston Township Police Department | 150.0 |
|---|---|
| County median, municipal police (11) | 150.0 |
| NJ median, municipal police (445) | 125.9 |
Investigations per 100 officers named in that year's IA investigations (the Attorney General's own "Number of Officers" field, a distinct-officer count drawn from the IA case data itself, not a department headcount). A higher number is ambiguous on its own: it can reflect more misconduct, or a stronger internal reporting culture. Medians are computed within the same agency type only.
6 investigations reported for 2025[1] ÷ 20 sworn officers the department reported to the FBI for 2025[21] = 30.0 per 100 FBI-reported sworn officers. This is a genuinely different denominator from the rate above, not a correction of it; the two should not be added or averaged together. See the methodology for why these two officer counts diverge.
Report card
Grade F: Highest fifth of peers
On reported IA volume and discipline severity; see methodology
- Combined standing
- 100th percentile of 171 peers
- Confidence
- Medium confidence
- small agency; per-officer rates swing widely on a handful of cases
Where this agency falls among its peers
The actual spread of discipline severity across Hardyston Township Police Department's real peer group, not an assumed bell curve. If the group is skewed, it is shown skewed.
Peer group: Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=171)
| Range | Agencies |
|---|---|
| 0–50 | 120 |
| 50–100 | 24 |
| 100–150 | 15 |
| 150–200 | 7 |
| 200–250 | 3 |
| 250–300 | 2 |
Hardyston Township Police Department: 272.727 severity-weighted discipline per 100 IA-investigated officers: 100th percentile among Municipal police, 15-29 officers (n=171).
How the grade is built
Three components, each a percentile within the peer group. The combined standing is their weighted mean, re-ranked among peers; the grade is the fifth of the peer group it lands in.
IA volumeweight 40%
160.0 investigations per 100 officers (multi-year mean)
Internal affairs investigations per 100 reported officers, averaged over the years where the agency reported both figures.
Discipline severityweight 40%
272.7 severity-weighted discipline per 100 officers, 2020-2025
Major discipline records weighted by sanction (termination 4, demotion 3, suspension 2, other 1) per 100 officers.
Allegation severityweight 20%
2.63 mean severity tier (1 low - 4 critical)
Mean severity tier of IA allegations across 2021-2025, using the published tier map; unknown values excluded.
What this grade can and can't tell you
- The underlying data is self-reported by agencies, one yearly snapshot at a time.
- Allegations are not findings; many complaints end unfounded, exonerated, or not sustained.
- There is no arrest or call-volume denominator in this data, so nothing here is a per-capita misconduct rate. A genuinely independent staffing-based rate, sourced from the FBI rather than this grade's own data, appears above when available. It is a different measurement, not a more accurate version of the grade.
- A higher internal affairs volume is ambiguous: it can indicate more misconduct, or a more robust oversight and reporting culture. The grade weighs it anyway, because volume is what the record offers; that choice is published, not hidden.
- The grade is one lens. The records it reads are on this page above.
Where this agency ranks
| Metric | Value | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| IA per 100 investigated officers2025 | 150.0 | 98th of 445 municipal police |
| IA investigations2025 | 6 | 282nd of 445 municipal police |
| IA incidents2025 | 6 | 244th of 445 municipal police |
| Major discipline2020-2025 | 3 | 87th of 282 municipal police |
| Sworn per 1,000 residentslatest reported census year | 2.34 | 234th of 460 municipal police |
| Police pay vs school paypension snapshot 2026-03-31 | 1.63x | 78th of 415 municipal police |
| OPRA requests recordedOPRAmachine, 2017 to present | 21 | 172nd of 458 municipal police |
Major discipline records
| Year | major discipline records |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 1 |
| 2024 | 1 |
| 2025 | 1 |
1 major discipline records in 2025, up from 0 in 2020.
Every name links to the officer's record page with the agency's full synopsis and citation.
Public records requests
Records requests about this department filed through OPRAmachine, an independent site that files Open Public Records Act requests in public and publishes the responses.[3] This is a third-party, user-generated source, separate in origin from the Attorney General records elsewhere on this page.
Current as of 12 July 2026. These figures are a point-in-time snapshot and do not update: requests filed to OPRAmachine after that date do not appear here. For live activity, see this body on OPRAmachine.
This department has no separate listing on OPRAmachine. Records requests for it are handled through Hardyston Township, the municipal records custodian, which also fields requests about permits, property, and code enforcement. Only the 21 requests whose subject line indicates it concerns the police department are counted below. The other 38 filed to Hardyston Township are about something else and are not shown.
What happened to those requests
Statuses as recorded on OPRAmachine. They are set by the person who filed the request when they classify what came back, not by the agency and not by any court. They describe the fate of a records request and nothing else.
| Awaiting agency response | 8 |
|---|---|
| Requester reported success | 8 |
| Requester reported partial success | 2 |
| Request refused | 1 |
| Agency said records not held | 1 |
| Withdrawn by requester | 1 |
Recent requests
The 12 most recent police-related requests to Hardyston Township, by date and recorded status. Each was written by a member of the public. A request is a question somebody asked. It is not a finding, not an allegation this site makes, and not evidence that anything happened.
- 2025-09-15Awaiting agency response
- 2025-07-25Requester reported partial success
- 2025-07-21Awaiting agency response
- 2025-04-18Request refused
- 2024-07-12Requester reported success
- 2024-07-10Requester reported success
- 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
- 2023-08-31Awaiting agency response
- 2023-06-19Requester reported success
- 2023-02-24Requester reported success
- 2023-02-22Requester reported success
- 2023-02-19Requester reported success
Show what each request asked for, as the requester wrote it
These titles are quoted from OPRAmachine exactly as the requester typed them. They are the requester's words, not this site's, and some describe what the requester believed or suspected. Nothing here has been established as fact.
A member of the public requested: “BWC Footage”
2025-09-15 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Derek Michelman Police Corruption Cover-Up Hardyston New Jersey Police Department”
2025-07-25 · Requester reported partial success
A member of the public requested: “How to be cover up for your shitty officers”
2025-07-21 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Hardyston Township Police Department Open Records Request”
2025-04-18 · Request refused
A member of the public requested: “Hardyston NJ PD Use of Force Reports”
2024-07-12 · Requester reported success
A member of the public requested: “Hardyston Police Dispatch Logs 7/8 & 7/9”
2024-07-10 · Requester reported success
A member of the public requested: “Purchase order history for the police department from 2020 - 2023”
2023-08-31 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Invoice of Body Camera Purchase in the Police Department”
2023-08-31 · Awaiting agency response
A member of the public requested: “Purchase order history for purchases by the police department from 2012 to 2019”
2023-06-19 · Requester reported success
A member of the public requested: “N.J.S.A. 47:1A-3b information on police officer”
2023-02-24 · Requester reported success
A member of the public requested: “Police Internal Affairs Summary Reports, Forms of Criminal Complaint”
2023-02-22 · Requester reported success
A member of the public requested: “Police Internal Affairs Reports, Transmittal Documents.”
2023-02-19 · Requester reported success
File your own records request
Anyone can request records from this municipality under the Open Public Records Act. This link opens a request on OPRAmachine, pre-filled with a neutral starting point you can edit or replace before you send it. The request, and any response, will be published there.
File an OPRA request about this department
See every request filed to Hardyston Township on OPRAmachine.
What this section can and can't tell you
- A request is not a finding. Every entry records what a member of the public asked for. None of it establishes that an agency did anything, and none of it is an allegation this site is making.
- Statuses come from the requester, not the agency. On OPRAmachine the person who filed the request classifies the response they got, so “successful” means they said they got what they asked for. It is not the agency's word and not an adjudication.
- Request volume is not a measure of misconduct. A long list usually reflects public interest, local journalism, or one determined requester. A short list usually means few people have asked.
- This covers OPRAmachine only. Most OPRA requests in New Jersey are filed directly with agencies and never appear here, so this is a floor, not a total.
- It is frozen at 12 July 2026. The figures come from a snapshot of OPRAmachine taken on that date and nothing refreshes them, so anything filed since is missing. Treat every number here as a lower bound that is only getting further out of date.
- The count is an undercount, by design. Requests to Hardyston Township are sorted by subject line, because that custodian also handles permits, property, and code enforcement. A request that is genuinely about the police but carries a vague subject line, and many do read only “OPRA Request,” is not counted here. The sorting is this site's own reading of the request titles, not a fact from the source, and it is deliberately cautious: it would rather miss a police request than show you somebody's building permit.
The match between this OPRAmachine body and this department is this site's inference, not a certified mapping. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.
Questions and answers
What is a summary of Hardyston Township Police Department's internal affairs and discipline record?
Hardyston Township Police Department, municipal police in Sussex County, reported 6 internal affairs investigations in 2025 and 4 officers named in those cases. The rate of 150 per 100 officers matches the Sussex County median of 150 and runs above the 125.9 municipal median. Reading that comparison takes care: a higher rate can signal more misconduct or a department that logs a larger share of the complaints brought to it. One of the 6 investigations detailed for 2025 reported sustained complaints. Theft and Other Departmental Rule Violation were the leading allegation categories, with Demeanor also appearing. Three major discipline records appear across the 2020-2025 releases, from 2023, 2024 and 2025. Hardyston Township received an F on the report card, at the 100th percentile among 171 peers in the 15-29 officers group, a medium-confidence grade.
How many internal affairs investigations did Hardyston Township Police Department report in 2025?
Hardyston Township Police Department reported 6 internal affairs investigations in 2025, according to New Jersey Attorney General data. 4 distinct officers were named in that year's IA investigations.
How many major discipline records does Hardyston Township Police Department have?
Hardyston Township Police Department has 3 major discipline records in the Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, of which 0 were terminations. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.
How many officers does Hardyston Township Police Department have?
Hardyston Township Police Department reported 20 full-time sworn officers to the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census for 2025, 0% of them female. That is 2.34 sworn officers per 1,000 residents. This is a different measurement from the "officers named in IA cases" figure elsewhere on this page, which counts distinct officers in that year's internal affairs investigations, not total staffing.
What does Hardyston Township Police Department pay its officers compared with local school staff?
The median pensionable salary for the 19 active Hardyston Township Police Department officers in the NJ Treasury pension file is $141,715. The median for the 75 TPAF-enrolled staff at HARDYSTON TOWNSHIP BD OF ED is $72,444, a ratio of 1.96x. Against the Sussex County school-staff median the ratio is 1.63x. These are pensionable base salaries: they exclude overtime, stipends, longevity and leave payouts for both groups, and a school contract year and a police work year are different lengths. TPAF covers certificated school staff, not only classroom teachers.
Sources
- [1]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2509. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [2]YourMoney Active Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset) and YourMoney Active Pension Members (TPAF subset, names removed). New Jersey Department of the Treasury. Both snapshots as of March 31, 2026. Derived from the public YourMoney Active Pension Members dataset, https://www.yourmoney.nj.gov/. Figures are computed by this site from as-reported pensionable salaries; the row-by-row account of what entered each figure is published at /data/pay-comparison.json. ↩
- [3]Records-request activity for Hardyston Township. OPRAmachine (opramachine.com), an independent public-records platform. Publicly visible requests only. Point-in-time snapshot taken 2026-07-12 from a database export dated 2026-07-11. Not updated after that date; see opramachine.com for current activity. ↩
- [4]New Jersey Internal Affairs Officers, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Officer counts summed across every Hardyston Twp PD row. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [5]New Jersey county boundaries. New Jersey Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS (NJOGIS). NJ_Counties_3857 (FeatureServer layer 0), https://services2.arcgis.com/XVOqAjTOJ5P6ngMu/arcgis/rest/services/NJ_Counties_3857/FeatureServer/0. 2020 boundary delineation. Retrieved 2026-07-27. Boundaries are generalized for display. This data set is not a survey document and must not be used as such. The polygons do not represent legal boundaries.
- [6]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8592. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
- [7]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8592. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
- [8]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8592. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
- [9]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8592. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
- [10]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 468. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [11]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1489. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [12]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1997. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [13]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 973. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [14]New Jersey Internal Affairs Agency Totals, 2021-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 2509. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. ↩
- [15]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Hardyston Twp PD row for 2025; row 1 is the header. ↩
- [16]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Hardyston Twp PD row for 2021. ↩
- [17]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Hardyston Twp PD row for 2022. ↩
- [18]New Jersey Internal Affairs Data Download, 2021-2023. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Hardyston Twp PD row for 2023. ↩
- [19]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Hardyston Twp PD row for 2024. ↩
- [20]New Jersey Internal Affairs Investigations, 2024-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Sheet1", row 1. Snapshot retrieved 2026-06-09. Aggregated from every Hardyston Twp PD row for 2025. ↩
- [21]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8592. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩
- [22]Ranks computed by this site over the Attorney General internal affairs agency totals and major discipline releases, within agency type. Each ranking page lists every agency and its source rows. ↩
- [23]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 794. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
- [24]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1428. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
- [25]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1974. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩