Virginia Personnel Act: Merit, Discipline, and Grievance Hearings

The Virginia Personnel Act is the state law, found in Chapter 29 of Title 2.2 of the Code of Virginia, that creates a merit-based employment system for the Commonwealth’s classified workforce and shields those employees from being fired without cause or a fair process.¹ In an at-will state where most workers can be dismissed for any reason or none, that’s a significant exception, and it comes bundled with a structured grievance system that includes real hearing rights.

Who the Act Protects

The Act covers classified state employees who have completed their probationary period. Once you’re past probation in a classified position, your agency cannot discipline or fire you without cause and without following the procedures the Act requires.

Section 2.2-2905 lists 29 categories of positions that fall outside the Act. The major exempt groups include:

Constitutional and elected officers, and anyone whose selection method is set by the Virginia Constitution
Officers and employees of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, judges, and court appointees exercising judicial functions
Officers appointed by the Governor, with or without General Assembly confirmation
Officers and employees of the General Assembly
Presidents, teaching faculty, research staff, and student workers at state educational institutions
Employees of specific entities including the Virginia Lottery, Virginia Retirement System, Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, Virginia Port Authority, and VCU Health System Authority
Laborers, temporary employees, and hourly or daily workers, upon the Governor’s authorization
County, city, town, and district officers and employees

If your position sits in one of these categories, the Act’s protections don’t reach you. One wrinkle worth knowing: some employees who are exempt from the Personnel Act still have access to the State Grievance Procedure. UVA Medical Center employees are the clearest example.²

Probation Comes First

New classified employees don’t get the full package of protections on day one. You must first complete a 12-month probationary period from your hire date. That window can stretch to 18 months for performance reasons, extended absences, or a transfer during your last six months of probation.³ During probation, your agency can let you go with far fewer procedural obstacles. Clear probation and you gain the Act’s full rights, including access to the grievance procedure and its hearings.

Merit as the Governing Rule

The Act requires that all appointments, promotions, and continued employment in state service rest on merit and fitness, determined as far as possible by competitive evaluation of qualifications.⁴ That’s not just aspiration. Agencies must use objective criteria in hiring and promotion, and employees have legal footing to challenge arbitrary personnel decisions.

The Written Notice System

When a classified employee commits misconduct or has a performance problem serious enough for formal action, the agency uses the Department of Human Resource Management’s Standards of Conduct policy. Offenses sort into three groups, and the group determines how heavy the consequences get. Written Notices are the primary mechanism that can end your state career, so the categories are worth knowing in detail.

Group I

These cover minor misconduct that still deserves formal discipline. A Group I Written Notice stays active for two years. One won’t end your career, but they stack: a repeat of the same offense usually escalates to a Group II, three active Group I notices should bring a suspension of five to ten workdays, and a fourth normally triggers termination.⁵

Group II

Group II covers more serious misconduct: significant operational disruption, major neglect of duty, insubordination, or abuse of state resources. A Group II notice stays active for three years. A first offense can carry up to a ten-workday suspension. Two active Group II notices, or three active Group I plus one Group II, typically warrant termination. In lieu of firing you, an agency may suspend you without pay for up to 30 workdays, or demote or transfer you with at least a five percent salary cut.⁵

Group III

The most severe category. A single Group III offense normally warrants termination on its own. These involve conduct that endangers others, breaks the law, constitutes significant neglect of duty, or seriously disrupts the workplace. A Group III notice stays active for four years. Mitigating circumstances can sometimes soften the outcome.⁵

Due Process Before You Can Be Fired

Classified employees who have cleared probation hold what courts recognize as a property interest in continued employment. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, that property interest triggers constitutional due process before termination. At a minimum, you’re entitled to written notice of the charges, an explanation of the employer’s evidence, and a chance to tell your side before the firing takes effect.⁶

This pre-termination step isn’t a full trial. The Court described it as an initial check against mistaken decisions. You don’t get to cross-examine witnesses or bring an attorney to this particular meeting. The deeper protections come later, through Virginia’s formal grievance and hearing process. But if your agency fires you with no chance to respond beforehand, that alone is a constitutional violation regardless of what the underlying charges might have proved.

Filing a Grievance

The State Grievance Procedure is how you formally challenge an adverse employment action. Before anything formal, employees are expected to try to resolve the issue with their immediate supervisor.⁷ When that doesn’t work, you file using Grievance Form A, which comes in standard, expedited, and dismissal versions on DHRM’s site.⁸

The deadline is the single most important thing to remember: you must present your written grievance to management within 30 calendar days of learning about the event you’re challenging.⁷ Miss that window and the grievance will almost certainly be dismissed no matter how strong the underlying claim. On the form you’ll identify the specific management action, the date, the facts, and the relief you want. Common requests include removing a Written Notice, reinstatement, and restored back pay.

If you’ve been dismissed for formal discipline or unsatisfactory performance, you skip the management resolution steps and go straight to a formal hearing.⁷

Which Complaints Can Reach a Hearing

Not every workplace dispute qualifies. Section 2.2-3004 draws the line. A grievance qualifies for a hearing if it involves:

Formal discipline, including suspensions, demotions, disciplinary transfers, and dismissals
Written personnel policies, procedures, or rules that were misapplied or unfairly applied to you
Discrimination based on race, color, religion, political affiliation, age, disability, national origin, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or military status
Performance evaluations that are arbitrary, capricious, or lack a reasonable basis
Retaliation for using the grievance procedure, reporting a legal violation, seeking legislative changes, or reporting fraud, abuse, or gross mismanagement

Several categories are explicitly off-limits for a hearing:

Disputes over wages, salaries, position classifications, or general benefits
Work activities you accepted as a condition of employment or that reasonably fall within your duties
Challenges to the content of policies, statutes, or regulations themselves
Management decisions about how work gets done or who does it
Layoffs, reductions in force, or job abolitions
Hiring, promotion, transfer, and retention decisions within the agency
Emergency reassignment of duties

⁹

The distinction trips people up. You can grieve a Written Notice because it’s formal discipline. You generally cannot grieve a decision not to promote you. You can grieve a policy that was unfairly applied to you, but you cannot grieve the existence of the policy itself.

Resolution Steps, Hearings, and Court Review

Unless you’ve been dismissed, a grievance moves through up to three management resolution steps before it can reach a hearing. Each step runs on a five-workday clock, both for the respondent’s answer and for your decision to escalate to the next level. The second step adds a face-to-face meeting where either side can bring one representative and call witnesses.⁷ An expedited version exists for terminations, suspensions, demotions, and lost wages, compressing the process into a single management step on the same five-workday timelines.¹⁰ Both sides owe each other relevant documents in a timely manner, with privacy protections for uninvolved employees.

After the resolution steps, the agency head has five workdays to decide in writing whether the grievance qualifies for a hearing. If the agency head says no, you can appeal that denial to the Director of DHRM through the Office of Employment Dispute Resolution, with the appeal going to your agency’s HR office within five workdays.⁹

Once a grievance qualifies, it goes to an independent hearing officer. That officer can order testimony and the production of evidence, administer oaths, weigh evidence, exclude irrelevant material, and consider mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Hearings are recorded verbatim, and both sides may present evidence and cross-examine witnesses.¹¹ This is the most trial-like stage of the process.

The hearing officer’s written decision is the final step within the grievance procedure. Either side that believes the decision contradicts the law has 30 days to file a notice of appeal with the clerk of the circuit court in the jurisdiction where the grievance arose. An agency must get prior approval from the DHRM Director before filing. The circuit court hears the case on the record, without a jury, and must decide within 15 days of the hearing’s conclusion. It can affirm, reverse, or modify the hearing officer’s decision, and the proceeding costs the employee and the Commonwealth nothing.¹²

Federal Discrimination Deadlines Run Separately

If part of your complaint is discrimination, you have a federal track with its own clock. A charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission generally must be filed within 180 calendar days of the discriminatory act, extended to 300 calendar days in Virginia because the state has its own anti-discrimination enforcement.¹³ Working through your state grievance does not pause or extend the federal deadline. If you may have both claims, treat them as two obligations with two separate clocks.

1
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-2900 – Short Title; Purpose
2
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-2905 – Certain Officers and Employees Exempt From Chapter
3
Virginia Department of Human Resource Management. DHRM Policy 1.45 – Probationary Period
4
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-2901 – Appointments, Promotions and Tenure Based Upon Merit and Fitness
5
Virginia Department of Human Resource Management. DHRM Policy 1.60 – Standards of Conduct
6
Justia Law. Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985)
7
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-3003 – Grievance Procedure Generally
8
Virginia Department of Human Resource Management. Employment Dispute Resolution – Mediation and Grievance Forms and Resources
9
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-3004 – Grievances Qualifying for a Grievance Hearing; Grievance Hearing Generally
10
Virginia Department of Human Resource Management. Grievance Procedure Manual
11
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-3005 – Hearing Officers; Duties
12
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 2.2-3006 – Review of Hearing Decisions; Costs
13
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge