The Idaho Spending Index serves to provide a fiscally conservative perspective on state budgeting while providing an unbiased measurement of how Idaho lawmakers apply these values to their voting behavior on appropriations bills. Each bill is analyzed within the context of the metrics below. They receive one (+1) point for each metric that is satisfied by freedom-focused policymaking and lose one (-1) point for each instance in which the inverse is true. The sum of these points composes the score for the bill.

Analyst: Niklas Kleinworth

Rating: 0

Bill Description: House Bill 368 is a trailer appropriation for House Bill 348 that provides $853,100 to raise the pay for appeals, district, and magistrate judges.

House Bill 368 is a trailer appropriation for House Bill 348 to provide salary increases for judicial offices statewide. Judicial salaries have to be changed in statute and are not subject to the annual statewide change in employee compensation. This legislation would appropriate these funds to provide a 3% increase for Supreme Court Justices, 4.5% for Court of Appeals Judges, 4.7% for District Judges, and 8.2% for Magistrate Judges.

Does this budget incur any wasteful spending among discretionary funds, including new line items? Conversely, does this budget contain any provisions that serve to reduce spending where possible (i.e. base reductions, debt reconciliation, etc.)? 

This appropriation is reasonably consistent with the fiscal note accompanying House Bill 348 and makes the appropriations effective in the 2024 fiscal year.

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