Idaho legislative committee recommends raises of up to 3% for state employees

A committee of Idaho legislators studying state pay and employee benefits is recommending raises of up to 3% for state employees next year.

On Friday, the co-chairs of the Idaho Legislature’s Change in Employee Compensation, Rep. Matthew Bundy, R-Mountain Home, and Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, presented the recommendation for state employee pay to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.

The specific recommendation calls for an across-the-board raise of 1% for all permanent state employees, plus a 2%, merit-based pay increase for state employees on top of the 1%. Bundy and Cook recommended giving state agency heads and institution presidents flexibility to distribute the funding as they see fit.

The raises would be for the fiscal year 2025 budget that kicks in July 1. Bundy and Cook said it would cost $27.3 million from the state general fund for the pay increases.

Recommendation would help recruit, retain state employees, legislators say

Bundy told JFAC that pay and benefits are an important tool in recruiting and retaining employees.

“The (Change in Employee Compensation Committee) recognizes that the goal of Idaho’s total compensation system for state employees is to fund a competitive salary and benefits package that will attract qualified applicants to the workforce, retain employee with a commitment to public service excellence, motivate employees to maintain high standards of productivity and reward employee for outstanding performance within the means reasonably available to the state,” Bundy said during Friday’s meeting.

In his fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, Gov. Brad Little is recommending 3% merit-based pay raises for state employees

JFAC members voted to accept the recommendation from Bundy and Cook’s committee on Friday, but it has not yet voted on whether to actually approve the funding for the raises. On Tuesday, JFAC is expected to vote on state employee pay and benefit levels in the fiscal year 2025 budget.

On Jan. 16, JFAC included funding for 1% raises for state employees as a “placeholder” in the new maintenance of current operations budgets JFAC set.

Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, criticized JFAC earlier this week for putting 1% raises in the budgets before Bundy and Cook’s committee could issue its recommendation for state employee pay and benefits, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.

In order to implement either Little’s recommendation or the recommendation from Bundy and Cook’s committee, JFAC would need to approve additional funding for the remaining 2% that would be on top of the 1% placeholder.

With more than 20,000 state employees, the state of Idaho is the largest employer in the state.

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