BELLACOSA, J.
Pursuant to Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) (L 1990, ch 29), a police officer, who temporarily served as a detective for more than 18 months, sued and was granted a promotional "appointment" to the rank of detective in the Rochester Police Department. We conclude that the statutory directive on which that judicial ruling rests violates the overriding constitutional prerequisite of article V, § 6, that appointments or promotions within the State civil service system be meritbased and determined, where practicable, by competitive examination. Consequently, we reverse the order of the Appellate Division.
I.
Petitioner, a Rochester police officer, was temporarily assigned to investigative duties and performed these duties for approximately 18 months. The department thereafter terminated his assignment. The officer sued, claiming that under Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) the 18-month period he had spent performing temporarily assigned investigative duties matured automatically into a permanent detective appointment. The City of Rochester resisted, including on the ground that Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) violated the merit and fitness requirement of article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution.
Supreme Court granted the petition and ordered the officer's appointment as a detective with a retroactive salary award. The Appellate Division affirmed, with two Justices dissenting ( 199 A.D.2d 1026). The majority found no constitutional infirmity, asserting that once an officer had served as a detective for 18 months, competitive testing for the position was not practicable and that the capacity and fitness to serve as a detective could "better be assessed by a review of the officer's extended period of on-the-job performance" (id., at 1027). The two dissenters, however, concluded that the Legislature's failure to address the practicability of competitive testing for detective positions rendered Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) facially unconstitutional (id., at 1027). The dissenting Justices would have held that absent a supportable legislative determination of impracticability of testing, promotions or appointments could be made only by competitive examination, and that, therefore, the provision, pursuant to which petitioner was granted the appointment and promotion, transgressed article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution (id., at 1027-1028).
The City and its police department appeal as of right on the two Justices' dissent (CPLR 5601 [a]) and constitutional (CPLR 5601 [b] [1]) grounds.
II.
Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) (L 1990, ch 29) directs that:
"Any person who has received permanent appointment as a police officer and is temporarily assigned to perform the duties of a detective shall, whenever such assignment exceeds eighteen months in duration,
be appointed as a detective and receive the compensation ordinarily paid to a detective performing such duties" (emphasis added).
The enactment, by its terms, commands an appointment to the rank of detective, using the potent civil service action word of art. The command takes effect solely by the passage of time, when an officer has performed investigative or detective duties on temporary assignment for the predicate period of time.
Article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution, however, articulates long-standing, well-settled State policy that appointments and promotions within the civil service system must be merit-based and, when "practicable," determined by competitive examination (NY Const, art V, § 6). The constitutional dictate does not create an absolute bar to civil service appointments and promotions without competitive examinations (Matter of Sloat v Board of Examiners, 274 N.Y. 367, 373; Matter of Sanger v Greene, 269 N.Y. 33, 40). An untested appointment or promotion, however, must rest on (1) a legislative determination that ascertaining fitness by competitive examination is "impracticable" (Matter of Andresen v Rice, 277 N.Y. 271, 279); and (2) a sound, discernible basis supporting the Legislature's determination of impracticability (id.; see also, Matter of Sanger v Greene, supra, at 40).
Because Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) mandates both an appointment and promotion within the meaning of article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution, and because there is no evidence whatsoever of a legislative consideration or determination of impracticability of testing for the detective rank, the enactment fails its constitutional threshold.
III.
At the outset, we conclude that Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) effects a mandate to municipal employers to appoint an officer to the position of detective. This constitutes an actual "appointment" and "promotion" within the meaning of article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution. Indeed, that is precisely what the lower courts ruled in granting the petitioner officer the relief he sought under the statute. When an appointment is meant to be permanent, or when it carries with it an "`advancement to a higher position, grade, class or rank [or] preferment in honor or dignity'" (commonly known and appreciated as a "promotion"), the placement of a worker in that position is an appointment or promotion, requiring merit and fitness constitutional scrutiny, satisfaction or explicit dispensation (NY Const, art V, § 6; see, Civil Service Law § 52; People ex rel. Campbell v Partridge, 89 App. Div. 497, 499, affd 179 N.Y. 530; People ex rel. Gilhooly v McAdoo, 108 App. Div. 1, 4-5, affd 185 N.Y. 537; see also, Hale v Worstell, 185 N.Y. 247, 253).
The plain language of Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c), the legal operation of the statute, its legislative history and the implementation by the courts below — which are disregarded by the dissent — uniformly support our conclusion that the challenged statute mandates an appointment or promotion governed by article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution. The statute's facially plain wording uses the operative term of art "be appointed" (Civil Service Law § 58 [c]). We are instructed to "`construe [statutes] so as to give effect to the plain meaning of the words used'" (Doctors Council v New York City Employees' Retirement Sys., 71 N.Y.2d 669, 675, quoting Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn. v City of New York, 41 N.Y.2d 205, 208). This precept is even more compelling when coupled with a supervening constitutional imperative, like the Merit and Fitness Clause.
Even were the term deemed ambiguous — an unsupportable conclusion in our view — an examination of the statute's legislative history demonstrably discloses that the statutory provision is meant to effect a permanent appointment or a promotion or both. It thus falls within the prohibitive orbit of the constitutional protection by that line of interpretive analysis as well.
The statute's singular goal was "[t]o insure that police officers who perform the duties of a detective o[n] a temporary basis (exceeding 18 months) be compensated as detectives and permanently appointed as a detective" (Mem in Support, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29 [emphasis added]). The bill was pursued and designed to alleviate perceived morale and inequity problems arising from such temporary assignments, when officers were forced to work for long periods of time side by side with "rank" detectives but without commensurate security, pay, and benefits (see, Mem in Support, op. cit.; Sponsor's Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29). The legislative history reflects that, if enacted, the bill would effect the permanent appointment or "designation" to the rank of detective of such temporarily assigned officers (see, Mem in Support, op. cit.; Sponsor's Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29 [distinguishing between "truly temporary assignments" and those mandated by the bill]; Mayor Dinkins Mem in Opposition, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29 [objecting to bill's "permanent appointment" of temporarily assigned officers]; NYS Conference of Mayors and Other Municipal Officials, Mem in Opposition, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29 [objecting to the bill's converting an "administrative assignment" into an "appointment"]; Suffolk County Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn, Mem in Support, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29 [referring to the appointment mandated by the bill as a "designation"]). While a party attacking the facial constitutionality of a statute bears a heavy burden (McGowan v Burstein, 71 N.Y.2d 729, 732-733), courts are not at liberty to save a statute by, in effect, rewriting it in a manner that contravenes its plain wording as well as its unambiguously articulated legislative purpose (Ivey v State of New York, 80 N.Y.2d 474, 480; Morgenthau v Citisource, Inc., 68 N.Y.2d 211, 223; People v Smith, 63 N.Y.2d 41, 79, cert denied 469 U.S. 1227; see also, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes §§ 92, 94, 96).
Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) ultimately overrode the filed Bill Jacket objections and effected the very result guarded against by civil service merit and fitness principles and protections. A police officer appointed pursuant to the challenged statute stands in the same position as an officer who is appointed or promoted after being subjected to existing competitive testing procedures for the rank of detective. Appointment by the alternative statutory route thus allows temporarily assigned officers to achieve the higher salaried, preferred status of detective without submitting to the competitive examination applicable to everyone else (see, Civil Service Law § 58 [c]). The will of the Legislature, motivated by those who pursued this enactment even for arguably well-intentioned purposes, brings about a displacement of the higher constitutional imperative and an unauthorized preferential appointment or advancement.
IV.
Civil Service Law § 75 (1) (e) cannot rescue section 58 (4) (c). The former provides that one "holding the position of detective" does not obtain rights to a hearing for discharge for cause until the appointee has held the position for three years. On this basis, for example, it has been held that no tenure attaches to the detective position upon appointment or promotion and that, therefore, the position is not a true appointment or promotion within the meaning of article V, § 6 (see, Matter of Suffolk County Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn. v Guido, Sup Ct, Suffolk County, Feb. 11, 1993, Lama, J., index No. 91-3807). That rationale is distinguishable and, in any event, does not withstand analysis as applied to the statute under review and with respect to the precise appointment issue of this case.
The time of vesting of a detective's rights to a "for-cause" removal hearing is simply not determinative of the nature of the appointment action mandated by Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c). To be promoted or appointed to the detective position, regular applicants in many parts of the State, including Rochester, are competitively tested — a significant fact devalued by the dissent. Those who succeed and are advanced to the post are then given the rank, benefits, and preferred status of detective. At that juncture, all the indicia of an appointment or promotion take hold. The appointment or promotion springs to life when these indicia of higher, preferred status attach, notwithstanding the fact that rights to a removal hearing remain inchoate for three more years. Since the appointment made under Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) provides officers with the identical, equivalent detective status, the appointment or promotion for constitutional purposes occurs when the employee's status rises from that of an ordinary officer to that of detective. The attributes and consequences of the permanent appointment mandated by Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) — enhanced pay, benefits, and dignity of position — are thus pertinent to and dispositive of the question at hand. Consequently, we hold that the appointment mandated by Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) falls within article V, § 6 of the New York Constitution.
Civil Service Law § 75 (1) (e), itself, demonstrates the weakness in relying on vested hearing rights as a determinative factor in assessing the nature of the appointment mandated by Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c). Civil Service Law § 75 (1) (e) provides that even where a detective has served for at least three years, no dismissal hearing is required when "reduction in rank from said position is based solely on reasons of the economy, consolidation or abolition of functions, curtailment of activities or otherwise." Accepting the rationale of those courts that equate hearing rights with permanency of appointment would logically lead to the conclusion that the appointment or promotion to the detective rank could hardly ever be considered permanent, because discretionary type factors (i.e., "curtailment of activities", "consolidation of functions") could always lead to a reduction in rank without a hearing. Under such a "hearing rights" rationale, no appointments to detective rank could ever be considered truly permanent and, hence, such elevations in rank would never be deemed promotions or appointments for purposes of the Merit and Fitness Clause of the Constitution (NY Const, art V, § 6). Since this cannot be so, we reject the "hearing rights" rationale in the instant case. It is an unsupportable prop designed to save the statute by ignoring the reality of the automatic appointment which is triggered by Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c).
V.
Our conclusion in this regard is also supported by our reasoning and holdings from earlier cases involving the "designation" — permanent appointment — of police officers to the status or rank of detective. In People ex rel. Campbell v Partridge ( 179 N.Y. 530, supra), we affirmed the ruling of the Appellate Division which invalidated as unconstitutional the designation of a patrol officer to the position of telegraph operator where that position "carried with it the rights and privileges * * * including * * * rank and pay of a sergeant" ( 89 App. Div. 497, 498). Finding the appointment to this position to be a promotion, the Appellate Division stated:
"The designation of the relator, a patrolman, as telegraph operator, was intended to be permanent, and was, therefore, a promotion, for it carried with it advancement in rank and class, together with an advancement in the salary to be received by him"
(id., at 499).
The Court noted that, without examination, patrol officers were not eligible for appointments of this status and that, consequently, the permanent appointment, which bypassed the examination requirement, violated the constitutional competitive testing mandate (People ex rel. Campbell v Partridge, supra, at 498-499; see also, People ex rel. Gilhooly v McAdoo, 108 App. Div. 1, 3-5, affd 185 N.Y. 537, supra).
The case at bar contains markedly similar features: (1) competitive testing is currently administered annually in most parts of the State for the higher-ranked detective position; and (2) the challenged statute irrefutably bears the legislative intent that the appointment be permanent in lieu of any examination and with no finding of impracticability of testing — an understandably difficult hurdle, since testing is otherwise imposed for the identical rank and function in many parts of the State, including Rochester (see, Mem in Support, Bill Jacket, L 1990, ch 29).
VI.
The Legislature's failure to assess the practicability of competitive testing for the detective rank renders unconstitutional the automatic appointment directive of Civil Service Law § 58 (4) (c) (see, N Y Const, art V, § 6). To be sure, a legislative enactment enjoys a strong presumption of constitutionality (Birkeland v State of New York, 98 A.D.2d 395, 398 [citing Borden's Co. v Baldwin, 293 U.S. 194, 209, 210], affd 64 N.Y.2d 663, 665). On the other hand, the specific constitutional requirement for competitive examination, where practicable, "may not be blinked [away] or avoided" (Matter of Board of Educ. v Nyquist, 31 N.Y.2d 468, 472; compare, Flushing Natl. Bank v Municipal Assistance Corp., 40 N.Y.2d 731, 739-740). In the instant case, the Legislature failed to address or articulate any impracticability of testing in the statute, and no such implied legislative finding can be gleaned from its legislative history.
We recognize that a legislative determination of "impracticability" need not be stated in the law itself. A statute may survive a constitutional challenge in this respect, however, only if (1) such a determination, at least, may be "`assumed'" from "`[some] state of facts'" concerning the enactment of the legislation (see, Birkeland v State of New York, 98 A.D.2d 395, 398 [quoting United States v Carolene Prods. Co., 304 U.S. 144, 154], affd 64 N.Y.2d 663, supra); and (2) the ultimate explicit or implied finding of impracticability of testing is supportable (Matter of Sanger v Greene, 269 N.Y. 33, 40, supra). Neither circumstance is satisfied in the case at bar, and thus petitioner's claim fails. Indeed, the opposite conclusion is plain. Testing for detective is common and, no doubt, was a fact known to the Legislature in the constellation of factors promoting this legislation.
Moreover, a legislative determination of impracticability of testing cannot be gleaned either explicitly or impliedly from the "state of facts" of this case (see, Birkeland v State of New York, 98 A.D.2d 395, 398, affd 64 N.Y.2d 663, supra). The legislative history of the bill demonstrates the opposite conclusion, as we noted earlier.
Were it possible to garner enough evidence from the record to support the conclusion that the Legislature did determine such testing to be impracticable, that legislative determination would not pass scrutiny in the instant case. "Practicability" denotes the ability to objectively test the applicant's capacity and fitness to serve in the position sought and requires an assessment of the character of the required duties of the particular position (Matter of Fink v Finegan, 270 N.Y. 356, 361-362; see also, McGowan v Burstein, 71 N.Y.2d 729, 734-735, supra; People ex rel. Sweet v Lyman, 157 N.Y. 368, 382; Matter of Condell v Jorling, 151 A.D.2d 88, 93). While the character of the position may constitutionally allow for dispensing with the examination requirement, either in whole or in part, noncompetitive appointments are the exception, not the rule (Matter of Andresen v Rice, 277 N.Y. 271, 276, supra).
The practicability of competitive testing for the rank of detective is manifest in the instant case. Competitive examinations have been held generally practicable for State and local law enforcement personnel (id., at 281), with few exceptions, including New York City (compare, Matter of Scotto v Dinkins, 85 N.Y.2d 209 [involving a different statute and decided today on nonconstitutional grounds]). The existence of annual competitive testing for the detective rank belies any assertion that an officer's fitness for the position cannot be assessed, at least to some degree, by competitive examination. Because the qualifications for the position of detective are measurable, to some extent, by competitive examination, the Legislature would be hard put to declare impracticability by simple fiat (McGowan v Burstein, 71 N.Y.2d 729, 734-735, supra; Matter of Fink v Finegan, 270 N.Y. 356, 362-363, supra).
Finally, we disagree with the Appellate Division's rationale dispensing with competitive testing on the basis that on-the-job performance was a better indicator of merit and fitness. While in some exceptional, appropriate circumstances on-the-job performance may be used to assess merit and fitness, the constitutional requirement to competitively test where practicable "may not be blinked [away] * * * simply upon the basis of * * * satisfactory performance during temporary or `out-of-title' service in [a] higher position" (Matter of Board of Educ. v Nyquist, 31 N.Y.2d 468, 472, supra). Notwithstanding a public employee's satisfactory on-the-job performance, when qualifications are subject, even in part, to objective assessment, those objectively testable qualities must be evaluated by competitive examination (see, McGowan v Burstein, 71 N.Y.2d 729, 734-735, supra; Matter of Board of Educ. v Nyquist, supra, at 471, 474). While untestable attributes may be considered and included as components of a complete evaluation of merit and fitness (McGowan v Burstein, supra, at 735), and while alternative noncompetitive measures of fitness may be employed to assess those more subjective attributes (Matter of Sloat v Board of Examiners, 274 N.Y. 367, 372-373, supra), the constitutional requirement to test competitively for objectively ascertainable qualities may not be summarily evaded by the Legislature or by the courts (see, McGowan v Burstein, supra, at 734-735).
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, with costs, and the petition dismissed.