Alaska Veterans Preference in State Employment

AS 39.25.159 adds points to a passing score in the examination for state employment. A veteran gets points equal to five percent of the points available. A disabled veteran or a former prisoner of war gets ten percent. Note the construction: it is five or ten percent of the points available, not five or ten points. On a hundred-point scale those are the same; on any other scale they are not, and the percentage form is what the statute uses. The definition of veteran is the part that decides most cases, and it is narrower than the word suggests. It asks for 181 days or more of active service with an honorable discharge, during one of a list of periods: April 6, 1917 to December 1, 1919; September 16, 1940 to December 31, 1947; June 27, 1950 to October 14, 1976; August 2, 1990 to January 2, 1992; and from September 11, 2001 to the end date set by presidential proclamation. Service of fewer than 181 days qualifies if it fell in one of those periods and ended for particular reasons. Separately, anyone awarded a campaign badge, an expedition medal, a Purple Heart or a decoration for heroism qualifies regardless of period. Now look at the list again. Between October 15, 1976 and August 1, 1990 there is no qualifying period. A veteran whose entire service fell in that fourteen-year window does not meet the definition unless they hold a campaign badge, an expeditionary medal, a Purple Heart or a heroism decoration. That is a large cohort, it is the cohort now in its sixties, and nothing on the face of a state job posting tells them the preference does not reach them. The gap is the single most consequential thing in this entry. Alaska Territorial Guard service of 181 days or more counts as qualifying service in its own right, without reference to the period list. A disabled veteran is a person entitled to compensation under laws administered by VA, or honorably discharged for a service-connected disability, or disabled in the line of duty while serving in the Alaska Territorial Guard. No percentage floor appears, so any compensable rating reaches the ten percent tier. A prisoner of war is a person who was held as a prisoner during a declared war or other conflict as determined by the Department of Defense. Family members are handled differently and more weakly. Where the assessment is not numerical, consideration must be afforded to the spouse of a veteran and to the dependent children of a veteran who died within the ten years preceding, unless the surviving spouse has remarried. That is a direction to consider rather than a points award. The preference applies to the examination score. An applicant who does not meet the minimum qualifications for the position gets nothing, because there is no passing score to add points to.