Rhode Island Civil Service Veterans Preference

Rhode Island General Laws 36-4-19 places names on the state employment list in the order of their ratings, and adds service credits to the final earned rating of examinees who are veterans: five points for veterans, ten points for disabled veterans. Three limits are built into the same sentence and all three matter. The credits apply in competitive tests "for entrance into the classified service, but not for promotion in the service". A veteran already working for the state gets nothing from this section when competing for a higher grade. Rhode Island's preference is a door-opening preference only. The candidate must first attain at least the minimum required final earned rating stated in the public notice. Points are added to a passing score; they do not create one. The credits attach to competitive examinations for the classified service. Positions filled outside that process are outside the section. On the employment list the letter "V" is placed opposite the name of each veteran and "DV" opposite each disabled veteran, so the preference is visible on the list rather than buried in a score. The definition of veteran at subsection (b)(2) has three limbs and the third is the one that surprises people. A person who served on active duty for other than training for more than thirty days and was discharged with other than a dishonorable discharge. Or a person discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability, with no minimum length of service at all. Or a member of the national guard or reserve forces with a minimum of twenty years of honorable service who has received a certificate of retirement and has been honorably or generally discharged. A drilling Guard retiree who never served a day of qualifying active duty is a veteran for this preference. There is a gap in the section worth knowing before an appeal. Subsection (b) defines "war veteran" and "veteran", but the ten-point credit goes to "disabled veterans", and subsection (b) does not define that term. Subsection (a) says both terms are as defined in chapter 3 of the title. The defined "war veteran" in (b)(1), which requires a campaign ribbon or expeditionary medal and an honorable or general discharge, is not the term used in the operative sentence at all. If the personnel administrator applies a narrow reading of disabled veteran, that mismatch is the ground to argue on. Rhode Island also has two much older public employment preferences that are still on the books and are worth knowing exist even though their service periods have closed. Section 30-21-8 preferred a disabled veteran of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine insurrection, the China relief expedition, or World War I for appointment and employment in every public department and on all public works, and provided that age, loss of limb, or other physical impairment that does not in fact incapacitate shall not disqualify. Section 30-21-9 ranks custodial vacancies in state buildings first to war veterans with a service-connected disability, then to those with a non-service-connected disability, then to war veterans with no disability, for World War I and Spanish-American War service. The section does not tie the ten-point credit to any percentage, so the rating filter does not hide this entry.