It was unanimous - the House has voted 64-0 in favor of HB 604, legislation to ban the practice of buying extra PERSI service for state employees as bonus for certain employees when they retire. That's what the state did three times last year - in one case, buying $72,781 in PERSI service for the retiring state director of human resources, in exchange for her agreeing to retire eight months earlier than she'd planned. Though the Otter Administration maintained it'd done nothing wrong - the state law that bans severance payments wasn't deemed to cover such services - the administration decided to support HB 604 and end the practice, which also resulted in a $42,142 payment to one state worker in 2009 to allow her to retire two years early rather than be laid off, and a $13,530 payment in a settlement to another who was being fired for disciplinary reasons, allowing him to qualify for full retirement, the Spokesman-Review reported in November.

Rep. Anne Pasley-Stuart, D-Boise, called the moves an "outrage," and her co-sponsor, Rep. Elfreda Higgins, D-Garden City, said the $125,000 spent on those payouts in 2009 "would have paid for three teachers, tax collectors, park workers or other services that are more important to the people of Idaho than paying money to three people so they could retire early." The bill now moves to the Senate.

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