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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

Bill would change how PERSI views legislators’ per diem payments

Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, persuaded the House Commerce Committee today to introduce his bill to stop counting per-diem payments to legislators who live within 50 miles of the state Capitol into PERSI retirement calculations; they have been included thus far because the $49 daily payments are considered taxable income, while the $122 payments for lawmakers from father away are not, under IRS rules. "That means they accumulate PERSI benefits, retirement benefits, at a faster rate than those who live more than 50 miles away," Lake told the committee, though there's no difference in the job or salary.

Lake said his bill wouldn't change anything about the taxability of the per diem payments or their amounts; it would just change how they're viewed with regard to PERSI benefits. He said, "This came  to our attention last summer when one of our investigative reporters was doing a little work on another issue and ran across this."

That reporter, John Miller of the Associated Press, discovered the quirk while gathering information for his report that two Canyon County lawmakers, Sens. John McGee and Curt McKenzie, were claiming the higher $122 per day per diem rate, though they lived less than 50 miles from the Capitol, by claiming a second residence for the session; Miller reported that McGee said he slept at his parents' and McKenzie said he slept on a couch at his Boise law office. Both stopped claiming the additional pay after the report; McKenzie had to return more than $2,400 that he also was paid for mileage from his home to the Capitol during the 2010 and 2011 sessions while also claiming to be staying in Boise, an overpayment that was attributed to a clerical error.



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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