Louisiana Fire and Police Civil Service Veterans Preference

Municipal fire and police civil service in Louisiana runs on its own statutes, separate from state civil service, and the veterans preference there works differently. Under R.S. 33:2491(E) and R.S. 33:2551(5), a person whose name is placed on the competitive employment list for the entrance or lowest ranking class in the classified service, who has served in the armed forces of the United States during times of war or for 180 days or more, and who has been honorably discharged or discharged under honorable conditions, has five points added to the final test score at the time of placement on the list. The board or the state examiner may require proof of service and discharge in any manner it deems advisable. Act 160 of the 2026 Regular Session, from House Bill 450 by Representative Kerner, is what added the 180-day language, effective August 1, 2026. Read that as the expansion it is. Before the amendment the preference reached service "during times of war." Act 160 added "or for one hundred eighty days or more" as an alternative. A peacetime veteran with six months of service who previously got nothing now gets the five points. The Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs summarised the act in its July 16, 2026 legislative release as setting "a 180-day minimum service requirement for veterans' hiring-preference points in fire and police civil service employment." Read on its own that sounds like a new hurdle. The enrolled act adds an alternative route rather than imposing a floor on the existing one, so a wartime veteran with fewer than 180 days still qualifies on the wartime path. A peacetime veteran who read the department's description and concluded the law had tightened against them has it backwards. Two structural limits remain. The points attach to the entrance or lowest ranking class only, so this does nothing for promotion within a department. And the statutes exclude several positions from the employment list requirement altogether: entrance firefighter, entrance police officer, entrance jailer, secretary to the chief, departmental records clerk, and entrance classes whose primary duty is operating and maintaining radio, alarm, or signal systems. Check with the municipal board which list, if any, governs the job you are applying for before counting on the points. Five points is the whole preference here. There is no 10-point disabled veteran tier in these statutes, unlike state civil service, so a disabled veteran applying to a municipal fire or police department gets the same five points as any other qualifying veteran. Bring the DD-214 to the municipal fire and police civil service board, and ask the state examiner's office what proof that board accepts, since the statute leaves the manner to their discretion.