Last week, top legislative leaders presented a plan to increase legislators’ pay by up to 43%. This increase would give Idaho the highest-paid part-time Legislature in America. Also last week, several legislators circulated a survey to their colleagues asking about the pay for legislators and the amount of staff serving the Legislature. The timing was curious, to say the least.
The compensation of Idaho’s legislators is determined by a citizens’ committee that makes its recommendations to the Idaho Secretary of State and State Controller, as shown in their 2022 report. Unless there is a resolution to reject the report, it goes into effect. If rejected, there is no change to the status quo.
Legislative leaders appeared before the citizens’ committee to make the case. The recommendation for a large salary increase for legislators failed to advance, as the vote was tied. You can read the proposal presented to the committee in this letter.
Committee members will again consider the proposal on November 6. The committee should reject it. Instead, the committee should recommend an increase that keeps legislators’ pay in line with increases for constitutional officers, as it has for the last several years. A more comprehensive change to legislative compensation requires a much more detailed review. At this point, there is not enough time left on the calendar for that review.
If the recommendations in the report reflect those in the letter to the committee, the Legislature should do what it did in 2009 and reject this recommendation. The current recommendation is a 43% increase in pay for legislators whose primary residence is within 50 miles of the Capitol and a smaller increase for those who live more than 50 miles away.
By ending the per diem, the 43% increase is achieved by going from a current base plus per diem of $26,425 to a salary of $37,801. That’s 43%, folks. For those more than 50 miles away, the per diem has to be “grossed up” because it currently is not taxable income, and this would increase the effective taxable value of the $6,512 per diem to $8,630 on the high end. This still results in at least a 32% raise with a range of up to 38% if a member is in a low tax bracket.
The optics of such a large increase are terrible, and the message sent to government agencies when the topic of spending comes up will make this request rather ill-timed. State employees will naturally seek bigger raises if legislators lead with such a large increase.
Background comparison to other states
With 50 states having their own legislatures, benchmarking legislative salaries can be done without a great deal of difficulty. The proposal to the citizens’ committee compared legislative compensation to the average Idaho household income over time. This is an improper analysis for a number of reasons.
The analysis attempted to compare changes to net take-home pay before and after the proposal, which isn’t valid unless we understand the marginal tax brackets of lawmakers based on outside income. And finally, a salary comparison change was shown to other state employees and constitutional officers since 2005. This is simply ludicrous. Every member ran for office knowing what the pay was, but, more to the point, only one legislator currently serving was in the Legislature back in 2005. So, there is no point in comparing the change to pay since that time. And without a comparison of benefits, any comparison to the average Idahoan is not realistic. Remember, compensation is a package, not just a salary.
America’s state legislatures can be divided into three categories: full-time, a hybrid (semi-full-time), and part-time. Idaho is classified as having a part-time legislature by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
While the hybrid category may be somewhat arbitrary, the distinction between full and part-time is clear. The 10 states with full-time legislatures include California, New York, Illinois, Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It’s an odd list, given the size of states like Hawaii and the population of Alaska. The highest-paid legislatures are as follows:
The two lowest-paid state legislatures are:
Given that most conservatives would rank New York and California as among the worst-governed states, we can’t say that better pay attracts better talent. It might, but it sure doesn’t repel those who seek office to grow government. And New Hampshire has generally had a reputation for fiscal frugality; it is the only state with no sales and no income tax!
Based on data that is several years old, full-time legislators, on average, are paid $82,358 compared to hybrid legislators at $41,110 and part-time legislators at $18,449. Idaho’s current legislative salary is $19,913 and, at the time of this comparison, was $18,691, virtually tied with the average pay for part-time legislators in the U.S. States with part-time legislatures include some of our red neighbors: Montana, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
So, based on benchmarks with other states, Idaho is not far off. Remember that this is a three- to four-month full-time job in Idaho, and any salary amount needs to be annualized.
A path forward
A case can be made that Idaho’s legislative pay has not kept up with other constitutional officers. Whether or not you agree with comparing the job requirements, should legislators’ pay move in step with other constitutional officers? First off, when you look at the total package, you understand legislators have a unique job that doesn’t easily compare to other state employees or constitutional officers. And the package as follows reflects that:
The legislators were not given a raise or chose to reject a raise in 2003-2006 and 2011-12 (the latter by voting it down, as mentioned earlier). So, there is a small argument that their pay has lagged. However, with the recent turnover in the Legislature, it makes no sense to go back to 2005 for comparison or even 2012, but rather reflect the average tenure of the current body.
As noted earlier, the compensation package includes not just the meal per diem but lodging and $2,500 (more for large districts) for constituent services. This latter amount has increased as well. There is also the pension eligibility, which was modified for newer members but still exists. However, not mentioned is that part-time legislators are eligible for extremely generous and low-cost health care coverage. This is worth a review.
For 2024, legislators (using the employee-only plan example) pay an annual premium of only $142 for a high-deductible plan and $922 annually for a PPO plan. For a private high-deductible plan, for those not on a state plan and simply buying insurance, the costs range from roughly $3,300 to $9,500 per year, depending upon your age. Any comparison of compensation to average Idahoans must take into account the huge benefits disparity.
Providing more resources
One bit of data that does deserve comment is the number of permanent staff per legislator. We haven’t thoroughly examined the numbers, but legislative service office research suggests that Idaho is among the least staffed legislatures among the western states.
Instead of simply growing the legislative services staff, it might make sense to re-purpose the eight positions in the Office of Performance Evaluations to provide direct support to legislators. Legislators should have complete oversight on hiring without executive branch criteria. Finally, over the last four years, the state employee headcount has increased by over 1,100 full-time positions. By culling some of those positions, the legislature could make a stronger case for redirecting resources to the legislative branch.
