§ 55-b. Employment of persons with disabilities by the state. 1. The
commission may determine up to seventeen hundred positions with duties
such as can be performed by persons with a physical or mental disability
who are found otherwise qualified to perform satisfactorily the duties
of any such position. Positions designated to be filled pursuant to this
section may be filled on a full-time or part-time basis. Upon such
determination the said positions shall be classified in the
noncompetitive class, and may be filled only by persons who shall have
been certified by the employee health service of the department as being
a person with either a physical or mental disability. The number of
persons appointed pursuant to this section shall not exceed seventeen
hundred.

2. Those employees hired under subdivision one of this section, shall
be afforded the same opportunity to take promotional examinations as
provided to employees in the competitive class.