Bill Description: House Bill 413 would require state agencies to fill or forfeit vacant positions; it would also require agencies to report reimbursed travel costs. 

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Does it in any way restrict public access to information related to government activity or otherwise compromise government transparency, accountability, or election integrity? Conversely, does it increase public access to information related to government activity or increase government transparency, accountability, or election integrity?

House Bill 413 would create sections 67-3520 and 67-3520A, Idaho Code. According to the bill, its purpose is to discover and eliminate government waste. 

Under this bill, each state department and agency would be required to "identify the number of currently vacant appropriated FTP, including portions of FTP, within such departments that were vacant for more than one hundred eighty (180) calendar days as of the end of the previous fiscal year."

It further says that vacant FTPs "shall be eliminated, and the amount budgeted for the payment of salaries and wages, including associated fringe benefits, of such eliminated FTP shall be reduced in the department's annual budget submission."

Alternatively, the department or agency may, "if the vacant FTP, or portion of FTP, has been vacant for less than one (1) year," request to retain the vacant FTP, or a portion of FTP. In such cases, the department or agency "shall fully fund the vacant FTP, or portion of FTP, from its existing funds and shall fill the vacancy as soon as practicable."

While these provisions could lead to less government hiring and spending, they could also push state departments and agencies to fill vacant but unnecessary FTPs in order to avoid budget reductions.

The bill would also require state departments and agencies to report to the Legislature "all travel expenses from the preceding fiscal year," which means "costs associated with reimbursement of travel or subsistence pursuant to the standard travel pay and allowance act of 1949, chapter 20, title 67, Idaho Code."

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