Available Soon: Request your printed copies of the Idaho Freedom Index mailed to you!
Request Your Copies
Note to Dustin: This is currently only visible to logged in users for testing.
Click Me!
video could not be found

Senate protects pension perk for legislators

Senate protects pension perk for legislators

by
Dustin Hurst
February 15, 2017
Author Image
February 15, 2017

The Senate State Affairs Committee declined to introduce legislation Wednesday that could have ended pension spiking by Idaho’s part-time lawmakers.

The panel declined to introduce the measure, which was brought by Sen. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian. The panel declined to make a motion to hear the measure, but then members turned back a last-ditch effort by Hagedorn to force introduction.

Committee members voted 5 to 4 against allowing further deliberations on the legislation.

This isn’t the first time that committee has played a key role to protect the pension perk. In 2015, the Idaho House passed legislation to end the scheme and the bill landed in the Senate State Affairs Committee. The panel chairman at that time, Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, refused to hear the measure.

The pension perk works as follows. Legislators serve long terms in the Capitol, while paying small sums into their retirement accounts from their part-time salaries. They then secure a gubernatorial appointment to a high-paying state job.

They stay in that post for at least 42 months. After that, all their part-time service in the Capitol counts as full-time under the high salary rate of the state job.

This simple re-definition skyrockets their annual pension, at the expense of Idaho taxpayers. Pension increases of 500 percent, 600 percent or more are common. Last year, this perk spiked a former legislator’s pension by more than 800 percent.

In the summer of 2016, the Citizens Committee on Legislative Compensation considered the issue, but recommended lawmakers handle the problem themselves.

At a press briefing earlier this year, Senate Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, suggested it’s “insulting” that some would allege that the pension perk plays into the governor’s deliberations when he is considering appointments.

Update: Senators who voted against introduction: Brent Hill, Bart Davis, Todd Lakey, Patti Anne Lodge and Chuck Winder. 

 

Idaho Freedom Foundation
802 W. Bannock Street, Suite 405, Boise, Idaho 83702
p 208.258.2280 | e [email protected]
COPYRIGHT © 2024 Idaho freedom Foundation
magnifiercrossmenucross-circle linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram