Minnesota Veterans Preference in State Employment

Minnesota state executive branch hiring runs on section 43A.11, and it does not award preference points. Subdivisions 3 and 4, which did, were repealed in 2004 when the state moved off examination-based hiring. Any description of a 10 or 15 point credit for a State of Minnesota job is describing section 197.455, which governs counties, cities, towns and school districts. What replaced the points is a rank ordering of the applicant pool, and it is stronger than points would be. Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications for a vacant position and claim disabled veteran's preference are listed in the applicant pool ahead of all other applicants. Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications and claim nondisabled veteran's preference are listed after those claiming disabled veteran's preference and ahead of nonveterans. This is an absolute ordering, not a weighting: a qualified disabled veteran is at the top of the pool regardless of how the rest of the field scores. A "disabled veteran" for this purpose is a person with a compensable service-connected disability as adjudicated by VA or by a service retirement board, existing when preference is claimed. Any compensable rating qualifies, and unlike section 197.455 there is no separate 50 percent definition anywhere in section 43A.11. Each recently separated veteran who meets minimum qualifications and has claimed a veterans or disabled veterans preference must be considered for the position, and the top five recently separated veterans must be granted an interview by the hiring authority. A "recently separated veteran" is a veteran under section 197.447 who served in active military service at any time on or after September 11, 2001 and was honorably discharged as shown by a DD-214. Note that this is a guaranteed interview, not a guaranteed consideration, and that it does not depend on a disability. The commissioner or appointing authority must notify applicants accepted into the state's selection process that they may elect to use veteran's preference, and if the appointing authority does not select a member of the finalist pool who claimed preference, it must notify that finalist in writing of the reasons for the rejection. Two adjacent sections matter. Section 43A.111 lets an appointing authority appoint a disabled veteran to a classified vacancy noncompetitively where the veteran is on a United States armed forces permanent disability list with a rating of at least 30 percent, or has been rated by VA as having a compensable service-connected disability of at least 30 percent; presents written certification of the existence and extent of the disability issued by the appropriate federal department within the year preceding appointment; and meets the minimum qualifications. If the appointing authority uses this route, it is not required to interview anyone else. This is permissive. Nothing in the section requires an agency to use it, and the certification must be less than a year old, which is the requirement that most often stops it. Section 43A.184 gives a state employee who is a veteran with a service-related disability up to 40 hours of additional sick leave in a fiscal year to receive treatment for the disability, on application to the appointing authority, where the employee's sick leave balance is insufficient. The appointing authority may approve it once per fiscal year, and approval is discretionary. Since Laws 2026, chapter 96, a veteran of the Secret War in Laos who holds a certificate of eligibility under section 197.448 is entitled to the benefit of sections 43A.09, 43A.11 and 43A.111 on the same terms.