(Boise, ID) After weeks of debate and negotiations, the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee approved pay increases for about 25,000 state employees Thursday.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC for short, voted 18-2 on Thursday to approve raises of between $1.05 per hour and $1.55 per hour for permanent state employees.
JFAC is a powerful legislative committee made up of 10 members each from the Idaho House and Idaho Senate that meets each day and sets the budget for every state agency and department.
Under the plan, all state agencies would receive funding to cover raises of $1.55 per hour for all full-time permanent positions. Agency directors and institution presidents would then have flexibility to use that money to distribute raises of no less than $1.05 per hour and no more than $1.55 per hour – based on merit. If agencies do not award the full $1.55 pay increases, the additional funding left over must be returned to the Idaho Legislature.
Rep. Wendy Horman, an Idaho Falls Republican who serves as co-chair of JFAC, said she supports the pay plan because it it provides a minimum increase of $1.05 per hour for all state employees while giving agency leaders flexibility to give a larger, merit-based $1.55 per hour increase to high-performing state employees.
“I believe this motion strikes a nice balance between recognizing and rewarding excellence and recognizing that everyone is experiencing inflation right now,” Horman said.
There are exceptions in the plan that give even larger targeted pay raises to specific groups of employees. Under the plan, IT and engineering state employees would receive salary increases of 4.5%. Idaho State Police troopers would receive increases not to exceed 8%. Health care and nursing state employees would receive raises of $1.55 per hour or 3%, whichever amount is greater.
According to a spokeswoman for Gov. Brad Little’s office, there are 803 IT and engineering employees who would benefit from the targeted increases. Another 32 health care and nursing employees would benefit from the targeted increase language because they would have received less than a 3% increase if they only got a boost of $1.55 per hour.
Meanwhile, Idaho legislators themselves – who are not full-time, year round employees – are receiving a much larger pay increase than state employees this year. Legislators are receiving 25% raises, with their salaries increasing from $19,913 per year to $25,000.
The Idaho Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 101 in an attempt to reject the pay increase for legislators. But the Idaho House did not take up Senate Concurrent Resolution 101, instead referring it to the House Ways and Committee to die, which would leave the 25% legislative pay raises in place.
Idaho Division of Human Resources says low pay for state employees leads to high turnover
State employee pay has become a growing issue in Idaho.
Before the 2025 legislative session began on Jan. 6, Idaho Division of Human Resources Administrator Janelle White said that state employees – across the board – are so underpaid that they could all leave their positions and do the same jobs for virtually any other public or private employer and be paid more.
White said state employee pay has not kept up with inflation over the past decade and the state has struggled to retain employees. Last year, the turnover rate was 19.2%.
The constant need to train new replacement employees is expensive and time consuming, HR officials said.
JFAC had been unable to reach an agreement on pay increases for state employees on at least two previous occasions this legislative session – first on Jan. 16, and again on Jan. 31.
The pay increases approved Thursday are slightly different from other state employee pay proposals legislators debated this session. In conjunction with his Jan. 6 State of the State address, Little recommended raises of 5% or $1.55 per hour. On Jan. 9, the Change in Employee Compensation recommended raises of $1.55 per hour for all state employees.
In January, JFAC members could not reach an agreement over employee pay. It was obvious there were deep, philosophical disagreements over whether to give agency directors flexibility to reward higher-performing state employees with merit-based raises, or providing across-the-board increases to all state employees, regardless of performance, to offset inflation and increased housing costs.
The story was different Thursday. With little debate, all 10 House members serving on JFAC and all 17 Republicans overall serving on JFAC voted to approve the state employee pay increases Thursday.
Even though all Republicans on JFAC voted yes Thursday, several made it clear they were still not fully happy with the state employee pay plan.
“This motion, however, rewards everyone,” Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, said.
Cook voted to approve the raises Thursday, but for weeks he had pushed to award performance-based merit increases, not flat raises across-the-board.
“This motion ties the hands of your managers and directors,” Cook added.
On the other hand, Rep. Steve Miller, R-Fairfield, said the fact that more than half of JFAC members appeared unhappy with the proposal could be a positive sign of healthy compromise.
Democratic Sens. Melissa Wintrow and Janie Ward-Engelking, both D-Boise, voted against the pay increases Thursday after expressing concern that the raises do not go far enough. Both Democrats said turnover among state employees and the need to constantly train new replacements would cost the state more than larger pay increases would.
Ward-Engelking said state employees who make more than $64,000 a year will receive less than a 5% increase with an increase of $1.55 per hour and she worries about retaining the most highly skilled, high-performing state employees.
“I think we have work to do, and I’m hoping this committee will make a commitment to come back next year and really help our state employees, at least get a cost of living (increase),” Ward-Engelking said Thursday.
The pay increases for state employees will be built into the maintenance of operations budgets for all state agencies and departments that JFAC set Jan. 17. The maintenance budgets will then be sent to the Idaho House of Representatives and Idaho Senate for consideration.
JFAC leaders describe the maintenance budgets as a bare-bones version of the previous year’s budget, with all the one-time funding and new spending requests removed. Under JFAC procedures, new spending requests are considered budget enhancements and are voted on separately from the maintenance budgets.
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.
