Massachusetts Civil Service Veterans Preference

Massachusetts does not add points to a veteran's examination score. It reorders the list, and that makes this the strongest public employment preference in this catalog by a wide margin. Section 26 of chapter 31 provides that the names of persons who pass examinations for original appointment to any position in the official service shall be placed on eligible lists in the following order: first, disabled veterans, in order of their respective standings; second, veterans, in order of their respective standings; third, widows or widowed mothers of veterans killed in action or who died from a service-connected disability incurred in wartime service, in order of their respective standings; fourth, all others. The consequence is blunt. A veteran who passes with a score of 71 is ahead of every non-veteran on the list, including one who scored 100. Within each tier the ranking is by score, so veterans compete with veterans on merit, but the tiers do not interleave. Where a state in this catalog gives five or ten points, Massachusetts gives priority. Who is a disabled veteran for the top tier is narrower than a reader might expect, and it is defined in section 1 rather than section 26. It means a veteran with a continuing service-incurred disability of not less than ten per cent based on wartime service, for which they are receiving or entitled to receive compensation from VA; or, where the disability is a permanent physical disability, for which they have been retired from a branch of the armed forces and are receiving or entitled to receive a retirement allowance; or with a continuing service-incurred disability based on wartime service for which they receive or are entitled to a statutory award. The phrase "based on wartime service" is the gate. A veteran with a ten per cent rating from a peacetime injury is a veteran for the second tier but not a disabled veteran for the first. Given the wartime periods in clause Forty-third and the open-ended Persian Gulf period beginning August 2, 1990, most modern veterans with a rating will be inside it, but a veteran whose service fell entirely in a peacetime gap will not. The third tier extends by a separate paragraph. The spouse or single parent of a veteran killed in action or who died from a service-connected disability incurred in wartime service, on proof from official sources and proof of not having remarried, is entitled to the preference. Four further provisions in section 26 are each worth more than most states' entire preference statutes. Appointment without examination. A person who has received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Medal or the Silver Star may apply to the administrator for appointment to or employment in a civil service position without examination. Age, loss of limb or other disability which does not in fact incapacitate shall not disqualify them. Appointing officers may requisition the names of such persons and appoint any of them. A recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross or Navy Cross may be appointed on the same conditions with the administrator's recommendation and the commission's approval. Retention in a layoff. A disabled veteran shall be retained in employment in preference to all other persons, including veterans. One sentence, and it puts a disabled veteran at the back of the redundancy queue behind everybody, other veterans included. Provisional appointments. An appointing authority shall appoint a veteran when making a provisional appointment under section 12, unless it has obtained from the administrator a list of all veterans who applied for that kind of work in the preceding twelve months, mailed a notice of the vacancy to each of them, and determined that none is qualified or willing. Provisional appointments are how a great deal of municipal hiring actually happens, and this closes the gap. Military records privacy. An appointing authority shall not require, request or accept an individual's military medical record or military personnel service record for employment purposes, and shall not impose any term or condition of obtaining or retaining employment that would require producing them. It may require, request or accept the DD Form 214. The exception is where the condition stated on the DD-214 is other than honorable, in which case service records may be required. This catalog has found no comparable protection in any other state. One protection for the disabled veteran at the top of the list. The administrator may require a disabled veteran to produce a physician's certificate that the disability does not incapacitate them from the duties of the position, and the cost of that examination is borne by the commonwealth rather than the veteran. Note the scope limit. Chapter 31 governs civil service positions, which in Massachusetts means state positions in the official service and those municipal positions, chiefly police, fire and some clerical and labour classifications, in communities that have accepted civil service for them. A great many public jobs in the commonwealth are not civil service positions and section 26 does not reach them. Before relying on this entry, ask the hiring authority whether the position is a civil service position. For chapter 31 purposes the wartime periods in clause Forty-third are widened in two places: World War II means all active service between September 16, 1940 and June 25, 1950 rather than requiring a Victory Medal, and Vietnam also includes all active service between May 7, 1975 and June 4, 1976. The same definition means different things depending on which chapter is being applied.