Iowa Veterans Preference in Public Employment

Iowa's public employment preference is the strongest in this catalog and most Iowa veterans do not know what it says. It is not five points on an examination. Read section 35C.1 and section 35C.3 together. The entitlement. Section 35C.1, subsection 1: "In every public department and upon all public works in the state, and of the counties, cities, and school corporations of the state, veterans who are citizens and residents of the United States are entitled to preference in appointment and employment over other applicants of no greater qualifications." The words are "entitled to preference in appointment and employment", and the comparison class is "other applicants of no greater qualifications". Where the veteran and another applicant are equally qualified, or where the veteran is better qualified, the veteran is entitled to the appointment. Note the definition. "For purposes of this section, 'veteran' means as defined in section 35.1 except that the requirement that the person be a resident of this state shall not apply." A veteran who has never lived in Iowa can claim this preference against an Iowa public employer. The section separately requires citizenship and residency of the United States. The duty on the person hiring. Section 35C.3 is the operative machinery: "When any preferred person applies for appointment or employment under this chapter, the officer, board, or person whose duty it is or may be to appoint or employ a person to fill the position or place shall, before appointing or employing a person to fill the position or place, make an investigation as to the qualifications of the applicant for the place or position, and if the applicant is of good moral character and can perform the duties of the position applied for, the officer, board, or person shall appoint the applicant to the position, place, or employment." Three things follow. The investigation is mandatory and must happen before anyone is appointed. The standard is good moral character plus the ability to perform the duties, not the best candidate. And the verb is "shall appoint". Written reasons, on the public record. The same section: "The appointing officer, board, or person shall set forth in writing and file for public inspection the specific grounds upon which it appointed or refused to appoint the person." This happens whether or not you ask. Separately, "at the time of application or at an interview for the position, an applicant may request notification of refusal only or notification of refusal and the specific grounds for refusal", and the notification must be sent within ten days after the successful applicant is selected and must include information on the right to bring mandamus under section 35C.4 or to appeal under section 35C.5. Ask for the grounds at the interview. It costs nothing and it converts a silent rejection into a written one you can test. Three remedies with three different clocks, and this is the trap. The clocks do not match and nothing tells a veteran to compare them. Mandamus or judicial review, section 35C.4: "An action of mandamus shall be filed by an applicant or incumbent within three hundred days after a refusal to allow the preference". Three hundred days. The section also covers "a reduction of the salary for a position with intent to bring about the resignation or discharge of the incumbent", so a constructive squeeze-out is actionable the same way. The applicant may elect judicial review under chapter 17A instead where that is otherwise applicable. Appeal to district court, section 35C.5: the appeal is "made by serving upon the appointing board, within twenty days after the date of the refusal of the appointing officer, board, or persons to allow the preference, a written notice of appeal stating the grounds of the appeal and a demand in writing for a certified transcript". Twenty days. The appointing body then has ten days to deliver the transcript and you have five days after that to file it with the clerk. Your notice of appeal stands as your complaint and the cause gets preference in assignment for trial. The court "shall receive and consider any pertinent evidence, whether oral or documentary", and if it finds you qualified it directs the appointing officer what to do next by mandate. Binding arbitration, section 35C.5A: submit the refusal to arbitration "within sixty days after written notification of the refusal or reduction". Sixty days. Within ten days of submission an arbitrator is selected by a three-member committee: one chosen by the veteran, one by the appointing authority, and a disinterested third selected by those two. "The decision of the arbitrator shall be final and binding on the parties." So the fastest route closes in twenty days and the slowest in three hundred, and the sixty-day arbitration route is the one that ends in a binding decision without a courtroom. A veteran who waits ninety days has lost two of the three. Removal protection, which is the part almost nobody knows. Section 35C.6: "No person holding a public position by appointment or employment, and belonging to any of the classes of persons to whom a preference is granted under this chapter, shall be removed from such position or employment except for incompetency or misconduct shown after a hearing, upon due notice, upon stated charges". On removal the person must be given written notification of the right to certiorari review or judicial review, and certiorari must be filed within three hundred days. This is tenure. Any veteran holding an Iowa public position by appointment or employment, at the state, a county, a city or a school corporation, is protected against at-will removal. Several states in this catalog have a hiring preference and no removal protection at all; Nevada, for instance, has neither an interview-quota analogue to this nor any removal provision. And the burden is on the employer. Section 35C.7, one sentence: "The burden of proving incompetency or misconduct shall rest upon the party alleging the same." Physical disability and age cannot disqualify you. Section 35C.2: a preferred person "shall not be disqualified from holding any position mentioned in section 35C.1 on account of age or by reason of any physical disability, provided such age or disability does not render such person incompetent to perform properly the duties of the position applied for." What is excluded. Section 35C.8: nothing in the chapter applies to "the position of private secretary or deputy of any official or department, or to any person holding a strictly confidential relation to the appointing officer." That is the whole exclusion list, and it is narrow. Two procedural entitlements in section 35C.1 itself. Subsection 2 requires every state and political subdivision job application form to inquire into the applicant's military service, and requires the department of administrative services to inform the hiring agency of it. Subsection 3 requires, for political subdivision jobs filled by competitive examination or appointment, that public notice of the application deadline be posted at least ten days before the deadline in the same way meeting notices are posted under section 21.4. Where the points system does apply. Subsection 4: "For jobs in political subdivisions of the state that are filled through a point-rated qualifying examination, the preference afforded to veterans shall be equivalent to that provided for municipal civil service systems in section 400.10." So a point-rated examination converts the chapter 35C entitlement into the section 400.10 points. Everything else keeps the chapter 35C entitlement. There is a clearinghouse and its existence is useful. Section 35C.9 requires the department of workforce development, with the department of administrative services and the attorney general, to maintain an information clearinghouse including "a written statement in plain language concerning the rights and duties of this chapter" and information on enforcement, and requires workforce development, administrative services, the attorney general and the department of veterans affairs each to link to it. If a hiring office tells you the preference is discretionary, that document is the shortest way to show otherwise. A drafting wrinkle to be ready for. Section 35C.1, subsection 2, paragraph "a" says the application form "shall contain an inquiry into the applicant's military service during the wars or armed conflicts as specified in subsection 1". Subsection 1 specifies no wars or armed conflicts; it points at section 35.1 minus the residency test, and section 35.1 includes peacetime routes in paragraphs "c" and "d". An employer reading subsection 2 literally might look only for wartime service. The entitlement in subsection 1 is not limited that way.