400.28  Employees — number diminished.
  1.  When the public interest requires a diminution of employees in a classification or grade under civil service, the city council, acting in good faith, may do either of the following:
  a.  Abolish the office and remove the employee from the employee’s classification or grade thereunder.
  b.  Reduce the number of employees in any classification or grade by suspending the necessary number.
  2.  In case it thus becomes necessary to so remove or suspend any such employees, the persons so removed or suspended shall be those having seniority of the shortest duration in the classifications or grades affected, and such seniority shall be computed as provided in section 400.12 for all persons holding seniority in the classification or grade affected, regardless of their seniority in any other classification or grade, but any such employee so removed from any classification or grade shall revert to the employee’s seniority in the next lower grade or classification; if such seniority is equal, then the one less efficient and competent as determined by the person or body having the appointing power shall be the one affected.
  3.  In case of removal or suspension, the civil service commission shall issue to each person affected one certificate showing the person’s comparative seniority or length of service in each of the classifications or grades from which the person is so removed and the fact that the person has been honorably removed. The certificate shall also list each classification or grade in which the person was previously employed. The person’s name shall be carried for a period of not less than three years after the suspension or removal on a preferred list and appointments or promotions made during that period to the person’s former duties in the classification or grade shall be made in the order of greater seniority from the preferred lists.
[S13, §679-h; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §5712; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, §365.28; C75, 77, 79, 81, §400.28]
86 Acts, ch 1138, §10, 11; 2010 Acts, ch 1069, §131