Tax collectors donate time off

BOISE – Idaho’s top tax collectors are donating vacation time to an employees’ leave fund after they were barred from taking unpaid furloughs.

The leave fund benefits state employees beset by personal or family illness.

The issue emerged last month, when the Idaho State Tax Commission’s four commissioners learned they couldn’t voluntarily turn down their full $85,000 salaries.

By then, they’d already taken 292 furlough hours, worth nearly $12,000, to save money and show solidarity with workers facing wage cuts.

With their vacation donations, the commissioners – Royce Chigbrow, David Langhorst, Sam Haws and Tom Katsilometes – aim to ease chagrin that they’d still get paid for time they took off.