At the Idaho State Capitol in Boise on Thursday, the influential budget committee of the Idaho Legislature did not vote on proposed increases for state employees.
Proposals for salary increases for state personnel were taken into consideration by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which creates the budgets for all state departments and agencies. However, the committee members were unable to agree and did not cast votes on opposing wage offers.
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The committee decided to accept a revenue forecast at a later, undetermined date after voting down two revenue projections for the fiscal year 2026 after givingling in on Thursday.
A little later, the committee was unable to agree on state employee benefit packages.
The group appeared on the verge of disbanding by the time ideas for state employee compensation were presented. While legislative staffers frantically evaluated the financial effect of various decisions, the committee cycled between a series of unannounced breaks during which a number of motions were made, misstated, revised, corrected, withdrawn, and eventually abandoned.
While some proposals included teacher pay increases, others did not include any teacher compensation at all, putting it on hold until a later vote.
Some plans only included targeted pay increases for certain IT and engineering staff members, while others included increases for all of them.
Sen. Kevin Cook, a Republican from Idaho Falls, made reference to vote pledges made by certain lawmakers during dinner on Wednesday night or early on Thursday, when JFAC was not holding a public meeting.
Various officials have been debating pay increases for state employees for weeks.Even before the 2025 legislative session started, there had been weeks of tension surrounding the topic of state employee compensation.
Saying that turnover is a problem for the state and that state employees are so undervalued that they could all go work the same job almost anywhere else and get paid more, the Idaho Division of Human Resources recommended 4% raises for state employees on December 20.
Governor Brad Little suggested 5% raises, or $1.55 per hour, for all public employees as part of his public of the State address.
The Change in Employee Compensation Committee of the Idaho Legislature suggested last week that all state employees receive raises of $1.55 per hour. Additional targeted raises of 8% for Idaho State Police troopers, 4.5% for IT and engineering personnel, and $1.55 per hour or 3%, whichever is higher, for nursing and health care professionals were also suggested by the Change in Employee Compensation Committee.
According to a Little spokesperson, the $1.55 per hour proposal would have applied to all full-time and part-time state employees in Idaho, which includes about 25,000 people, but not temporary workers.
According to Little’s office, the targeted increases would have had an impact on 803 IT or engineering staff members and 157 Idaho State Police troopers.
Additionally, Little’s office stated that 32 of the state’s 157 nursing and healthcare workers would be impacted by the targeted increase, as they would have earned less than a 3% rise if they had only received the $1.55 per hour boost.
Whether the rises should be given to all state employees as a cost-of-living boost or based on merit to reward and motivate success was one of the major points of contention surrounding the compensation hikes.
Instead of establishing a new date for the consideration of state employee pay, the chairmen of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee stated that they will do so after additional calculations have been made.
The budget committee of the Idaho Legislature is anticipated to establish maintenance budgets on Friday.
JFAC co-chairs Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, and Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, announced Friday morning that they will move forward with the 2026 maintenance budgets.Grow and Horman characterize maintenance budgets as stripped-down versions of the current budget, devoid of any one-time funding or new spending requests, that are only necessary to keep state agencies operating under the new JFAC regulations that were worked out last year.
Pay for 25,000 state employees and further spending proposals will be taken into consideration later.
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