Idaho agencies request pay hikes

BOISE – Citing a critical need to retain and recruit qualified employees, state agencies are putting pay raises at the top of their budget requests to Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne for the next fiscal year.

Several of the state’s largest agencies say they’re losing good employees to the private sector or other public agencies because meager salary increases approved by the Idaho Legislature during the past few years don’t come close to matching marketplace averages.

Last year, the Division of Human Resources estimated it would take more than $83 million to bring all 24,000 of Idaho’s state employees up to levels comparable with their peers in other states and the private sector.

In the latest requests from agencies for funding allocations next year, the Idaho Department of Corrections is asking for $3 million to give raises averaging 10 percent to its more than 850 uniformed prison guards. The Department of Juvenile Corrections wants more than $2 million to boost paychecks of its employees; the Department of Health and Welfare is asking for $1.7 million for raising salaries of 460 nurses, physicians and social workers; and the Idaho State Police wants more than $1 million for trooper pay hikes, plus another $2.7 million to hire additional staff.

“I think we’re seeing a response to the frustration of not being able to retain people and pay them what they’re worth, and the feeling that they’ve got to do something right now,” Andrew Harnhardt, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 687, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper. The union represents some state workers.

Kempthorne’s spokesman, Mike Journee, said the governor is considering all the requests as he develops the executive branch’s request for agency funding to the 2006 Idaho Legislature. Traditionally, an across-the-board pay increase amount for state workers is recommended by the governor and the raises are doled out on a merit basis by agency officials.

But this year, agency heads are lobbying more aggressively for substantial pay raises, and some lawmakers are unsure how that will play when legislators sit down to consider the requests.

“I can totally understand why the agencies would take things into their own hands,” said Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise, who has worked as a state attorney and later as a manager of about 40 people in the Department of Environmental Quality. “But from a policy standpoint, it’s not the best way to do it.”