Panel: Amend pay bill

The House State Affairs Committee has voted to send HB 692, the pay bill, to the House’s amending order with a committee amendment attached as proposed by Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise. The amendment would leave the first two years of the plan intact - reducing to state elected officials’ pay by 4 percent next year, then restoring it back to this year’s level the following year - but then grant much smaller increases in the following two years of about 2 percent a year, rather than from 8 to 25 percent as in the bill now. Several other committee members said they’d support different amendments. Three members asked to be recorded as objecting in the voice vote on the motion: Reps. Anne Pasley Stuart, D-Boise; Raul Labrador, R-Eagle; and Erik Simpson, R-Idaho Falls. Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, didn’t vote, as his dad, state Treasurer Ron Crane, is among those whose pay the bill affects.