Opinion
No. 3-537 / 02-1766
Filed November 17, 2003
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dubuque County, Robert J. Curnan, Judge.
A city appeals from a district court declaratory judgment ruling that found Iowa Code chapter 400 (2001) precluded the city from imposing a residency restriction on a city employee. AFFIRMED.
Barry A. Lindahl, Dubuque, for appellant.
William H. Roemerman of Crawford, Sullivan, Read Roemerman, P.C., Cedar Rapids, for appellee.
Heard by Huitink, P.J., and Zimmer and Miller, JJ.
The City of Dubuque appeals from a district court declaratory judgment ruling that found the provisions of Iowa Code chapter 400 (2001) precluded the city from imposing a residency restriction on one of its employees, Virginia Barton. We affirm.
Background Facts and Proceedings. The City of Dubuque (City) has had a residency policy since 1980. As currently written, the policy requires most of the City's employees to maintain a residence within the City or to reside within 6.5 miles of city limits.
Virginia Barton has worked for the City since 1972. She became the "material control clerk" for the City's water pollution control plant in 1985 and continues to hold that title. In 1987, Barton moved to a farm near Zwingle, Iowa. The farm is approximately seventeen miles from the City of Dubuque and is outside the City's residency limit.
When the City attempted to invoke its residency requirement against Barton, she protested the requirement was invalid as applied to her. Relying on Iowa Code section 400.17, which permits a city to impose such a restriction only on police officers, firefighters, and other critical civil service employees, Barton contended she was a civil service employee, but not a "critical" employee.
The City sought a declaratory judgment on the issue of whether it could impose its residency restriction on Barton. The district court found Barton was a civil service employee under chapter 400 but was not a critical employee. It therefore ruled the City's attempt to impose a residency restriction on Barton ran afoul of the provisions of section 400.17. The City appeals.
Scope of Review . We review this action at law for the correction of errors at law. Iowa R.App.P. 6.4. Although many of the facts were stipulated to by the parties prior to hearing, the district court was nevertheless required to make some factual findings. Those findings are binding upon this court if supported by substantial evidence. Id. at 6.14(6)( a).
Discussion . The City argues Barton is not a civil service employee subject to the protections of chapter 400 because she is actually the principal secretary to a city department head. Iowa Code section 400.6 provides in relevant part,
This chapter applies . . . to all appointive permanent full-time employees in cities having a population of more that fifteen thousand except: . . . 5. The principal secretary to the city manager or city administrator, the principal secretary to the mayor, and the principal secretary to each of the department heads.
The City agrees that prior to 1997 Barton's position as material control clerk was a civil service position, but argues her position was converted to that of a non-civil-service principal secretary in 1997. At that time, the position of secretary for the plant manager was eliminated, Barton's material control clerk responsibilities were reduced, and she took on some secretarial duties. The City contends that because Barton is the only person in her department who performs secretarial tasks she is by definition and operation of law the principal secretary to her department head, and is therefore exempt from the Civil Service Act. We disagree.
While Barton's job tasks cannot be broken down with absolute precision, it appears the bulk of her tasks, at least sixty-percent if not more, are functions of the material control clerk position as defined prior to 1997. These tasks include ascertaining the need for, ordering, and maintaining the inventories of parts and supplies for the water plant, assisting plant operations as needed, and performing janitorial functions. The minority of her tasks, no more than forty percent and likely less, relate to duties listed within the City's job description for a secretary. In addition, Barton works for the entire department, not merely the department head, and reports not to the department head, but his subordinate. The record reveals Barton spends a very small portion of her work day performing traditional secretarial duties for the department head. Significantly, even after Barton took on secretarial duties she continued to be listed as and compensated at the higher rate of a material control clerk.
Under the City's rational, it is free to remove any civil service employee from the protections of chapter 400 by simply instructing that individual to assume the secretarial duties for his or her department. This cannot have been the intent of the legislature when it enacted the exceptions of section 400.6. Although terms in chapter 400 should be liberally construed, such construction is done in an effort "to put positions in the classified service beyond political control or the exercise of partisanship and personal favoritism . . . [and]for the removal of employment in the public service from partisan politics and the placing of it upon the basis of merit and fitness to be ascertained by competitive examinations open to all." Airport Comm'n v. Schade, 257 N.W.2d 500, 503 (Iowa 1977). See also Iowa Code § 400.16.
The positions exempted from civil service status by section 400.6 are primarily those with political implications. This includes the exemption for principal secretaries, who hold positions of confidence with elected or appointed officials. Barton's job duties do not now, nor have they ever, fit such a description.
Under the facts of this case, Barton was not the principal secretary to a department head within the meaning of section 400.6. Accordingly, the district court did not err in declaring that Barton was a civil service employee of the City. We therefore turn to the question of whether Barton is a critical employee under section 400.17.
In rejecting the City's argument that Barton is a critical employee, the district court stated: "When the Iowa Code refers to `and other critical municipal employees,' it is referring to employees carrying out critical city responsibilities such as the police officers and firefighters specifically listed. Trained emergency care personnel might be such an example."
Section 400.17 provides, in relevant part, "Cities may set reasonable maximum distances outside of the corporate limits of the city that police officers, fire fighters and other critical municipal employees may live." The City contends Barton is a critical employee primarily because it considers all of its civil service employees to be critical employees. However, before the City made this sweeping policy decision, it requested department heads to assess which of their employees were "critical" or those "that would be involved in a response to severe weather, disaster or other emergency situation." Barton's department manager wrote "No" next to "Material Control Clerk." Although the City provided testimony from its personnel manager that Barton is considered "critical" because she maintains the parts inventory for the City's water plant, Barton has never been called into work in the event of an emergency, and the plants' official disaster contingency plan does not list the material control clerk as an emergency responder.
Although not directly pertinent to the narrow issue here, we note the City's policy of designating all civil service employees as critical employees renders superfluous the use of the term "critical" in section 400.17. See Iowa Code § 4.4(2) ("The entire statute is intended to be effective."); In re G.J.A., 547 N.W.2d 3, 6 (Iowa 1996) ("We will presume the legislature enacted each part of the statute for a purpose and intended that each part be given effect.").
Barton contends the reference to "other critical municipal employees" encompasses municipal employees who, like police and firefighters, are called upon to respond to emergencies that threaten life or property. We agree with this contention. Accordingly, we conclude the court did not err in determining that Barton was not critical employee, and declaring that the City's attempts to impose a residency restriction on Barton were contrary to the provisions of section 400.17.