An agency that violates an individual’s veterans preference rights under the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act is liable for both the value of benefits lost as well as for back pay, MSPB has ruled.
The VEOA allows certain veterans to compete for a vacancy whenever the hiring agency will accept applications from outside its own workforce; VEOA eligibles are not subject to the same area of consideration limitations as other applicants.
The case involved a veteran who argued that he was improperly passed by for four vacancies in violation of that law and other veterans preference laws. Ultimately a hearing officer ordered the agency to reconstruct the job competitions; the agency did not do so but rather offered the individual a job retroactive to the date it filled the first of those four positions. The individual did not accept, having already retired, but he filed a motion for retroactive wages and benefits and sought an additional monetary award, citing the failure to comply with the order to reconstruct the job competitions.
The hearing officer found that the individual was entitled to back pay, but not back benefits. However, the board held that the VEOA requires the award of both “if both types of losses have occurred.” That is consistent with the way other similarly-worded laws have been interpreted and further would extend to crediting the time toward retirement credit, MSPB said in a summary of the decision.
The merit board meanwhile agreed with the hearing officer’s denial of additional monetary damages. Even though the agency did not reconstruct the hiring process as ordered, that order was designed to resolve whether he would have been eligible for one of the four jobs, an issue that became moot when the agency offered him the first of them that opened, it said.