Court Opinion

ID: 9794372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:04:42.446247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:14:56.921529
License: Public Domain

Justice MULLARKEY,
dissenting:
The majority holds that nothing in our state constitution prohibits the general assembly from paying the same salary to state employees who perform unlike or dissimilar services or from setting a maximum salary cap without regard to the standards and grades of employment which are established by the director of the department of personnel (director) or the state personnel board (board).1 The effect of these holdings is to make the relevant provisions of Sections 13 and 14 of Article XII of the Constitution superfluous. Because Article XII of the Constitution is intended to provide a system of fair and relative compensation for state employees according to the different standards and grades of employment established by the board, and thus to restrain the power of the general assembly to do otherwise, either directly or by any other device, I respectfully dissent.
The public employees here claim that section 24-50-104(6), 10B C.R.S. (1988), which mandates a maximum salary level for public employees, violates certain sections of Article XII (the civil service amendment). The majority rejects that claim, relying primarily on Vivian v. Bloom, 115 Colo. 579, 177 P.2d 541 (1947). Our analysis in that case, however, does not support the majority’s conclusion that Article XII, Section 13(8) “neither expressly nor by necessary implication prohibits payment of identical compensation to state employees performing unlike or dissimilar services.” Maj. op. at 51. In my view, the issues presented by the employees require a more exacting review of our precedents construing the civil service amendment and the history of that amendment. Specifically, this case requires us to make a clearer determination of the constitutional division of power between the general assembly and the constitutionally created personnel board, a determination which upholds the purpose and use of each clause and sentence of the civil service amendment. See Colorado State Civil Serv. Employees Ass’n v. Love, 167 Colo. 436, 448 P.2d 624, 630 (1968).
In Colorado Ass’n of Public Employees v. Lamm, 677 P.2d 1350 (Colo.1984), we held that “[t]he provisions of Article XII of the Colorado Constitution set forth in detail the principles under which the state personnel system is to operate. While the General Assembly can supplement the provisions of Article XII, no legislation contrary to the express or implicit requirements of that Article can survive a constitutional challenge.” 677 P.2d at 1353. We also noted that “the connection between statute and [board] rule is sometimes a subtle one Lamm, 677 P.2d at 1361. Subsequently, in Colorado Ass’n of Pub. Emp. v. Colorado Department of Highways (D.O.H.), we held that “[t]he Board, created by section 14 of Article XII, adopted contemporaneously with section 13, has an essential role in elaborating upon the framework established by that latter section.” 809 P.2d 988, 993 (Colo.1991) (citing In re Interrogatories of the Governor, 111 Colo. 406, 412, 141 P.2d 899, 902 (1943) (“rulemaking is one of the Board’s constitutional functions”)). However, we also stated there that the general assembly has a “concurrent role in fleshing out the details of the state personnel system.” D.O.H., 809 P.2d at 993. See Article XII, § 14(3) and (4) (providing that laws may be enacted pursu*59ant to the civil service amendment). In D.O.H., we concluded that the constitution “contemplates the elaboration of the Civil Service Amendment through laws enacted by the legislature and rules adopted by the Board.” 809 P.2d at 998.
There is a tension in D. O.H. between our recognition of the “essential role” of the board and our recognition of the “concurrent role” of the general assembly as to implementation of the state personnel system. We were not required to resolve that tension in D.O.H. because neither the legislature nor the board had attempted to address “contracting out,” the practice there in question. The case now before us, however, requires resolution of this tension as to the constitutional division of power between the general assembly and the board because there is a direct conflict between the legislative act capping salaries and the board’s setting of standards and grades. The majority errs because it eliminates the board’s constitutionally-created power by subordinating it to the legislative will. Again wrongly construing Vivian, maj. op. at 51, 52-53, the majority fails (1) to differentiate adequately between the legislative power to fix salaries and the board’s power to determine the grades of positions of public employees and (2) to see clearly the necessary effect which a determination of those grades must have, under the constitution, on the legislative power to set the salaries of public employees.
Certain principles of constitutional construction serve to resolve the latent tension in D.O.H.. In Love we articulated the following principles which govern the construction of a constitutional provision. As I have already suggested, “[ejach clause and sentence” of a constitutional amendment “must be presumed to have purpose and use, which neither the courts nor the legislature may ignore.” Love, 448 P.2d at 630. Secondly, in “interpreting a constitutional amendment, which has been adopted by popular vote, the court must presume that the words were used in their ordinary meaning and that the people intended what they have said.” Id. at 628. Thirdly, the “governing principle, long adhered to in this state, is that legislative construction cannot abrogate the plain meaning of the Constitution.” Id., at 630. In addition, “[tjhere is a presumption that the language and structure of a provision in a constitution were adopted by choice, and that discrimination was exercised in the language and structure used.” White v. Anderson, 155 Colo. 291, 394 P.2d 333, 336 (1964).
Applying the foregoing principles to our seemingly conflicting holdings in D. O.H., I would conclude that the concurrent power of the general assembly to implement the civil service amendment does not include the power to annul the purpose of that provision which specifically allocates to the board the power to standardize positions and to determine the grades of positions. The purpose of this specific allocation of power to the board is to ensure that state employees “shall be graded ... according to standards of efficient service which shall be the same for all persons having like duties.” Article XII, § 13(8) (emphasis added). Thus, the grading of public employees is at least equal in constitutional stature to the compensating of those employees. Since grading is an essential element of the merit-based personnel system, it therefore cannot be secondary to, or derivative of, compensation. If anything, compensation is a function of gradation.
The general assembly, which has the power of the purse, is commanded by the civil service amendment to make adequate appropriations to carry out the purposes of the amendment. Article XII, § 14(5). The purpose of the general assembly’s concurrent power to implement the amendment is to ensure that state employees “shall be ... compensated according to standards of efficient service which shall be the same for all persons having like duties.” Article XII, § 13(8) (emphasis added). Thus, the language and structure of the civil service amendment mandate a division of authority which cannot be breached by powers otherwise concurrent. Any other construction would render vital clauses and sentences of the amendment useless or ineffective. See In re Interrogatories of the U.S. District Court, 642 P.2d 496, 497 (Colo.1982) (court “guided by a longstanding rule of constitu*60tional construction that provisions in this state’s constitution are to be interpreted as a whole with effect given to every term contained therein.”).
Thus, I believe that the civil service amendment should be construed to maintain the allocation, between the board and the legislature, of the power to determine the grades of employment and of the power to fix salaries respectively, but simultaneously to recognize that the former must necessarily affect the latter. In my view, this construction of the civil service amendment is the basis of the analysis in Vivian, to which I shall turn after presenting a complete review of the history of the civil service amendment.
I begin by noting that the majority’s consideration of the “evolution of this state’s institutional responses” to the problems of recruitment, retention and compensation of public employees, maj. op. at 47-49, glosses over the history of antagonism between the general assembly and the people of the state as to the proper institutional solution to the civil service question. In contrast, in our recent review of the history of the constitutional amendments establishing the state personnel system in Colo. Ass’n of Pub. Emp. v. Bd. of Regents, 804 P.2d 138 (1990), we candidly re-acknowledged the possibility of hostile legislation toward the civil service system in general and toward the compensation of civil service employees in particular. In Regents, we “recognized that [the civil service] amendment embodies the strong disposition of the people of Colorado to protect the state civil service system from ‘destruction or emasculation ... in the future by some possible hostile general assembly.’ ” 804 P.2d at 145 (quoting People ex rel. Clay v. Bradley, 66 Colo. 186, 179 P. 871 (1919)).
The Bradley court took judicial notice of the legislative history of the civil service before the first civil service amendment to the Constitution, initiated and approved by the voters in 1918. It noted that civil service ended up in the constitution because the general assembly thwarted the people’s attempt at reform through an initiated act:
In 1907 the Legislature enacted a so-called Civil Service Law (S.L. 1907, c. 117); in 1912 this was amended by initiated law (S.L. 1913, p. 682); in 1915 the Legislature passed a new act and repealed all others (S.L. 1915, p. 143); ...
Before the act of 1912, Legislatures were occasionally hostile to the merit system, and refused appropriation to support the commission. The act of 1912 was initiated to compel appropriations and to remedy other defects, and did so. By the act of 1915, however, which repealed all former laws, the Legislature, from the standpoint of those especially devoted to the merit system, destroyed much of its beneficial effect, and the constitutional amendment was initiated accordingly for the very purpose of avoiding the destruction or emasculation of the law in the future by some possible hostile General Assembly. These are matters which should be taken into consideration in construing the amendment in question.
Bradley, 179 P. at 871 and 872. That the 1912 statute, initiated by the people to compel appropriations and to remedy other defects, was subsequently repealed by the general assembly is only one of the more egregious examples of the legislature’s hostility toward the civil service system.
Since 1919, and including after the 1970 amendments, this court has considered the persistent antagonism of the general assembly toward the civil service when addressing disputes over public employment and compensation. See D.O.H., 809 P.2d 988, 991, 995 (observing that the “Civil Service Amendment was originally adopted in 1918 in response to legislative hostility towards a merit-based civil service” and holding that “any reorganization must still comply with the policies and strictures of the Civil Service Amendment”) (footnote omitted); Regents, 804 P.2d 138, 146 (statute which forced employees of university hospital to leave the personnel system held to violate “Article XII, Section 13, which protects state personnel from legislative measures designed to circumvent the constitutional amendment”); Lamm, 677 P.2d *611350, 1359-60 (holding that a promotion by any other name remains a promotion under Article XII, Section 13(1)); Love, 167 Colo. 436, 448 P.2d 624 (declaring sections of an administrative reorganization statute unconstitutional for excluding certain department directors from the civil service); Vivian, 115 Colo. 579, 177 P.2d 541, 545 (holding that “equal salaries for all persons having like classification are assured” by the civil service amendment); People ex rel. Kelly v. Milliken, 74 Colo. 456, 457, 223 P. 40 (1924) (holding that since the tenure of certain offices was secured to the plaintiffs “by the Constitution, the so-called civil service amendment, (article XII, § 13), the legislature has no power to deprive them of it.”).
Thus, the 1970 amendments to the civil service amendment did not, and were not intended to, modify or detract from the grant of power to the board to standardize positions and to determine the grades of positions. Although the 1970 amendments replaced the Civil Service Commission with the board, the amendments preserved the language and structure of the 1918 amendment, allocating the same relevant powers to the board that were formerly allocated to the commission. Thus, the power to adopt rules to implement the relevant sections of Article XII, including rules “concerning standardization of positions, determination of grades of positions, [and] standards of efficient and competent service,” Article XII, Section 14(3), was allocated to the board just as the identical power was allocated to the commission.2
The majority also compares the present Article XII, Section 14(3) with the first civil service amendment, Ch. 102, 1919 Colo. Sess. Laws 341, 342-43, but concludes that “[n]either the prior nor the current constitutional amendments contain express limitations on the authority of the General Assembly to appropriate funds for the purpose of compensating state employees ..other than the one limitation recognized by the majority’s narrow reading of Vivian. Maj. op. at 53, n. 10. The majority supposes that this conclusion is further supported by the conduct of the general assembly in having fixed the salaries of state employees “by specific legislation from 1919 until 1972, under both constitutional schemes.” Maj. op. at 54. Contra Love, 448 P.2d 624, 630 (“ ‘Contemporary construction can never abrogate the text; it can never fritter away its obvious sense; it can never narrow down its true limitations ....’”) (quoting People ex rel. Seeley v. May, 9 Colo. 80, 10 P. 641 (1885)).
The issue, however, is not whether the general assembly has the power to fix salaries, but whether the general assembly can fix those salaries without regard to the grades determined by the board. In other words, what are the strictures which the civil service amendment places on the general assembly’s power to fix compensation? In my view, the salary cap functions in practice to defeat the range of grades established by the board, rendering the constitutional mandate to standardize and grade positions an exercise in futility.
Because the 1970 amendments did not alter the division of power between the general assembly and the constitutional successor to the commission, namely, the board, our analysis in Vivian, 115 Colo. 579, 177 P.2d 541 (1947), remains authoritative and is on point here if properly construed. In Vivian, we held that “[u]n-der the [predecessor] amendment the Assembly can no longer fix the salary of an *62individual employee, but only of the salary of each class and grade as established, by the Commission, and the performance of its obligation so to fix salaries is necessary for the proper establishment of civil service in Colorado in accordance with the amendment.” 177 P.2d 541, 545. The language used there is crucial. We explicitly characterized the general assembly’s role as an “obligation,” that is, an obligation to fix the salaries of “each class and grade as established” by the predecessor to the board.
This obligation is given substance only if we construe the amendment to mean that the general assembly is obliged to fix the salaries of each grade after the grades are determined by the board and to fix those salaries so as to correspond to the range of those grades. The majority opinion, in contrast, reduces the amendment’s mandates to mere exhortations. In Vivian, we delineated the constitutional power of the board’s predecessor, holding that:
There is no express or implied provision [in the civil service amendment] transferring to the Commission authority to fix salaries. The only reference to compensation is contained in the declaration of the third paragraph that, “Persons in the classified service shall hold their respective positions during efficient service and shall be graded and compensated according to standards of efficient service which shall be the same for all persons having like duties.” No suggestion is therein contained that either the grading or compensation shall be made by the Commission, but in the fourth paragraph the authority to standardize and grade is specifically given to the commission. The specific declaration of the one indicates the exclusion of the other.
177 P.2d at 548-44 (emphasis added). I would hold here that the converse applies as well. Just as the constitutional declaration of the board’s authority to standardize and grade excludes the authority to compensate, the same declaration implies that the power to compensate other than according to the grades determined by the board is excluded from the general assembly’s otherwise unrestricted power to appropriate funds for compensation. This proposition simply restates the constitutionally-created division of power. Neither the general assembly nor the board can both grade and compensate personnel positions, and the funds for that compensation cannot be appropriated in a way which defeats the standards and grades which are determined by the board.
Thus, just as we could not concur in Vivian with the contention that the “power to classify carries with it by necessary implication the power to fix compensation,” 177 P.2d at 544, neither can I concur here with the contention that the power to fix compensation carries with it by necessary implication the de facto power to classify or grade either directly or by any other device. The statutory salary cap is one such device. This view is amply supported by Vivian:
[T]he authority to fix compensation confers no control as to classification. Authority to classify all employment inside the classified service is plainly and specifically vested by the amendment in the Commission_ The Commission is required to standardize. This can only mean to set up standards by means of which classes and grades of employment can be distinguished ... [and] standards by which the fair and relative compensation for different classes and grades can be determined.
177 P.2d at 544 (emphasis added). The effect of a salary cap which is no longer keyed to the board’s own highest standard and grade is to blend or merge, not to distinguish, those classes and grades with lower grades. The conclusion that the cap is another device which in practice circumvents the civil service amendment is confirmed by Vivian:
Compensation must be made appurtenant to class and grade as established by the Commission and the full authority of the Commission to classify and grade may not be undermined by fixing salaries separately for the employees of different departments or by any other device. The Assembly has authority to limit appropriation ... and if the appropriation *63fails, then [the employees] must be dismissed in accordance with seniority rights_ [S]alaries must be fixed according to class and grade as established by the Commission and the determination and equality of service rests in its discretion.
177 P.2d at 545 (emphasis added).
Thus, since the determination of equality (or relative value) of service now rests with the board, I would hold that the civil service amendment prohibits the same compensation to public employees providing services which the board has found to be of different value to the public. Furthermore, the compensation fixed by the general assembly must be fair and relative, that is, relative to the grades and standards as determined by the board. This means that nominal differences in salary which purport to satisfy the grades established by the board, but which bear no fair and relative correspondence to the board’s hierarchy of grades, will not pass scrutiny. The board has determined that the employees here are providing the public with services which are not equal, but superior, to the services provided by others. Nevertheless, the employees are effectively classed in practice with those others by the salary cap.3 This is precisely what the merit-based civil service amendment was designed to prevent.
The majority opinion virtually extinguishes the division of powers mandated by the language and structure of the civil service amendment. Because as we have said so often the intent of the amendment is to protect the merit-based personnel system from the hostile actions of the legislature, I dissent.
QUINN, J., joins in this dissent.

. I note that although by statute the director now performs many of the constitutional functions of the board in addition to the day-to-day administration of the personnel system, Article XII, Section 14(4) provides that the director shall administer the system under the constitution and the laws enacted pursuant thereto, and under the rules adopted by the board. Thus, for the purposes of this dissent, I shall refer to the board as the proper constitutional actor vis-a-vis the general assembly.

. See also Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly, An Analysis of the 1970 Ballot Proposals, Research Publication No. 151 (1970) at p. 5: "The present three-member Civil Service Commission would be replaced with a five-member State Personnel Board. The new board would establish rules for the state personnel system ..., such rules to include standardization of positions, determination of grades of positions, [and] standards of efficient and competent service_ Under the proposed new organizational structure, the board itself would become primarily a policy-making and appeals body, less concerned with the day-to-day administration of the personnel system than is the present Civil Service Commission” (emphasis added). "The legislative council’s interpretation, while not binding, provides important insight into the electorate’s understanding of the amendment when it was passed.” Carrara Place v. Bd. of Equalization, 761 P.2d 197 (Colo.1988). The majority notes the board’s policy-making function, maj. op. at 48, but fails to attach any significance to it.

. According to the record, the director determined that certain employees should be graded higher than the then current grade of 99 and that such higher grades should receive correspondingly higher compensation.