After much debate, a House committee agreed this afternoon to repeal a special exemption for state lawmakers that allows their state-funded pensions to soar if they follow long service in the Legislature with a brief stint in a high-paid, full-time state position. The most recent high-profile beneficiary of the special exemption is new Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney; after serving one four-year term as Secretary of State, his pension will balloon from the roughly $500 a month he’s due as a nine-term state lawmaker to more than $3,600 a month. That’s because the special exemption for lawmakers treats their part-time years as full-time if they later take a full-time state job.

The new bill, proposed by Reps. Steven Harris, R-Meridian, and Kelly Packer, R-McCammon, would treat lawmakers the same as all other part-time elected officials for purposes of retirement, including mayors, city councilors and the like, starting July 1. It wouldn’t remove the pension spike from those, like Denney, who already have qualified for it.

Rep. James Holtzclaw, R-Meridian, led a move to kill the bill, saying, “I just can’t get there. I don’t feel like I’m part-time. … I just feel like this would limit people that would want to serve their state. It’s OK to serve your state for 30 years and get compensated. I guess I can’t see why that’s wrong.”

Packer said the current special exemption creates inequities, citing a recently retired state representative who served for more than 30 years. She doesn’t get the retirement spike, because she didn’t end her service in a higher-paid full-time job. But lawmakers who didn’t serve as long in the Legislature do qualify. “For me, it simply comes down to what is fair and equitable,” she said. “The entire Legislature does not receive this additional spike in their pension.” She estimated that “maybe 1 or 2 percent” get the lucrative perk.

Harris said then-Sen. Phil Batt removed the special exemption for lawmakers in 1985, but then-Sen. Jim Risch restored it in 1990. Removing the special exemption would treat legislators like any other part-time elected official who later gets a full-time state job; a sliding scale would calculate the part-time and full-time service separately for purposes of calculating that official’s state pension.

Rep. Pete Nielsen, R-Mountain Home, said, “I get a statement from PERSI every so often, it tells me how much money is in the account and all that. … This may change that figure which is fine. But the actual amount of dollars that are there will not change and I could take a 100 percent cash … regardless of this bill, could I not?”

Harris said, “This bill affects none of that whatsoever.” Nielsen said he was struggling with how to vote on the issue, and feels that as a state lawmaker he’s more than part-time. “I count campaigning time as part of that time,” he said, “because I wouldn’t be campaigning if I wasn’t trying to seek this part-time job.” But Nielsen ended up joining the majority in the 1-12 vote to reject Holtzclaw’s motion to kill the bill, and the 12-1 majority to introduce it. That clears the way for a full hearing on the measure.

Then-Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, introduced legislation to do away with the special perk in 2012, but Denney, then speaker of the House, killed the bill.

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