Opinion ID: 1982034
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Union's Offer of Evidence.

Text: The union assigns as error the district court's refusal to receive and consider evidence offered on the question whether its proposal constituted a mandatory subject of collective bargaining. The evidence proffered by the union consisted generally of statistics concerning law enforcement officers assaulted or killed while on duty, the relationship between such assaults and manpower staffing, and the availability of equipment and techniques for reducing the risks of such harm to officers. The district court rejected the offer on the ground that this judicial review proceeding presented only an issue of law, not an issue of fact. We agree. The underlying administrative proceeding we here review is not the evidentiary hearing before the fact-finder but the proceeding leading to a declaratory ruling of the PER Board. We are not called upon to decide whether this particular contract proposal is fair or economically feasible; those factual determinations are left to the parties or subsequently to an arbitrator if the proposal constitutes a mandatory subject of bargaining and the parties reach no agreement. Charles City Community School District v. Public Employment Relations Board, 275 N.W.2d 766, 769 (Iowa 1979); Iowa Code §§ 20.21-.22. Separate and distinct from that fact-bound determinationwhether a mandatory proposal has substantive meritis the preliminary question for the PER Board, an issue purely one of law, as to whether the union's proposal on its face is a mandatory subject of bargaining. Saydel Education Association v. Public Employment Relations Board, 333 N.W.2d 486, 490 (Iowa 1983). Iowa Code section 17A.9 authorizes the PER Board to provide by rule for ... declaratory rulings.... The PER Board has implemented that statutory authority, through rule, by providing an expedited declaratory ruling mechanism for resolving negotiability issues. 660 Iowa Admin.Code 6.3(2), 10.1-.6 (1985). We have held this agency declaratory ruling procedure is an adequate administrative remedy that must be exhausted before resort to the courts. City of Des Moines v. Des Moines Police Bargaining Unit Association, 360 N.W.2d 729, 732 (Iowa 1985); Public Employment Relations Board v. Stohr, 279 N.W.2d 286, 289 (Iowa 1979). Neither the union nor the city presented evidence to the PER Board before it issued its declaratory ruling in this case, and the final agency decision which we here review presented only a legal question of statutory construction. Saydel, 333 N.W.2d at 489-90; Charles City Education Association, 291 N.W.2d at 666; Note, The Scope of Negotiations Under the Iowa Public Employment Relations Act, 63 Iowa L.Rev. 649, 675 (1978). The district court did not err in refusing to consider evidence offered by the union in this judicial review proceeding.