Well, we called it. In the past few weeks, key members of the Idaho judiciary wrote a letter, and Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Bevan spoke to the Legislature about the “need” for dramatic increases of 27% to 31% in judicial salaries. Here is what their proposed increases look like:
These are outrageous pay raises, especially when some Idahoans think judges play activist from the bench by being soft on crime and letting ideology take precedence over proper jurisprudence. Some prosecutors around the state are pushing to get mandatory sentencing into Idaho law because of their distrust of how judges apply penalties to convicts.
And, remember, Idaho judges have among the most generous pension benefits in state government. For example, currently, a judge who takes the bench at age 44 can retire at age 60 after 16 years of service as a Supreme Court Justice with a $110,180 annual pension for life. If this pay raise went into effect, that same judge would get a lifetime pension of $139,750 per year — even if most of their service was in lower-level judicial positions.
Why are they asking for so much? As we at the Idaho Freedom Foundation said last October, legislative leaders proposing a dramatic, oversized pay raise for Idaho’s part-time legislators would start a snowball of additional pay requests and state budget demands. When families are struggling under years of high inflation and stagnant real wages, it’s unseemly to see these big-government pay proposals piled on top of years of government bloat in Idaho.
Yes, legislative leaders proposed a 43% pay increase for legislators, which is over the top and would put Idaho as the highest-paid part-time legislature in the country.
Then, in November, the Citizens’ Committee reconvened and revised the legislative pay raise downward to “only” 22% — still a huge pay raise for Idaho’s part-time legislature whose members enjoy full state health plan benefits, receive a generous per diem while in session, and have their travel costs reimbursed.
Online social media discussions have been fascinating. Many Idahoans, facing inflation and high taxes, strongly oppose the legislative pay raises. A few others, with friends and favorites in the Legislature, want the higher pay for them. A few legislators (only 10 by our count) back a resolution to reject the pay increase, while the other 95 legislators are staying eerily mum or are cautiously and quietly supporting the pay raise.
Then came the judges. We were right.
Then came the proposals for all state employees’ pay raises. The governor’s own Department of Human Resources (DHR) proposed a 4% raise across the board. For perspective, the proposal was not astronomical, but it was definitely higher than the average annual increase of around 3.4% over the last 10 years.
Then, in a highly unusual move, Gov. Little one-upped his own DHR to propose a 5% average increase in state employee pay across the state. It is rare indeed for the governor to deviate from the recommendation of DHR based on their many months of research and analysis and propose even more because of his own reasons, whatever they may be.
Then came the Idaho Change in Employee Compensation Committee (CEC) recommendations. Instead of an across-the-board percentage increase for state employees, the CEC proposed a $1.55 per hour increase in pay. This raise would be bigger than 5% for lower-tier employees, close to 4% for mid-range employees, and lower than 4% for high-range employees. This includes an 8% increase for Idaho State Police, an additional 4.5% increase on top of the $1.55 per hour for IT/Engineers, and a more modest increase for state nurses.
Overall, the CEC proposal amounted to 4.6% on average, 4.9% if you include the additions for targeted employees — much bigger than historical raises.
In dollar terms, the snowball effect is more dramatic. First, the pay increase for legislators has a total budget cost of $658,000 per year on an ongoing basis. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was a sure signal to state employees and agencies that higher salaries and higher budgets were definitely “on the bargaining table” for 2025.
The bloated judicial salary requests would cost more than $10 million per year.
The proposals for all state employees ranged from a cost of $146 million (DHR recommendation of 4%) to $177 million (CEC recommendation of 4.6% or $1.55/hour) to $181 million (governor recommendation of 5%). In other words, the elevated legislative pay and judicial pay proposals gave safe harbor to those asking for outsized raises for all state employees to the tune of over $34 million more than what the HR Department recommended.
All these massive requests, if passed, amount to much higher obligations placed on taxpayers who still pay grocery and property taxes, have yet to see full school choice, and suffer under outsized inflation, all while being told just how lucky they are to live in “conservative” Idaho.
But that’s not all; legislative, judicial, and general state employee pay and salaries are just the beginning of a gigantic spending snowball. Wait until we see the budget requests coming in the next few weeks. Just how do legislators hold the line on ridiculous budget growth, knowing they themselves are the beneficiaries of an unprecedented leap in legislator pay? How will they be able to withstand public scrutiny from media outlets, which will likely report how legislators got massive pay increases but are trying to “starve” bureaus of the resources they “need?”
As we have documented elsewhere, budget growth is out of control (55% over the last five years), and the governor is already proposing an outrageous increase of 16.9% in state spending (including transfers) for this year alone. Keep in mind an increase during one year is compounded over time as future budget increases are piled on top of an inflated government spending base.
A final question: How do we expect ordinary Idahoans to respect the Legislature when they see over-the-top increases in legislative pay, judicial pay, state employee pay, and overall budgets? The good news is there are a few outstanding legislators fighting back. Combined with the efforts of IFF, these legislators hope to squash the increases and get the legislature back on track to doing what Idaho really needs: school choice, grocery tax repeal, immigration reform, and DEI elimination, just for starters.
The latest news: Last Friday, January 17, the Senate voted to approve Senator Christy Zito’s resolution to reject the legislative pay raise put in by the Citizens’ Committee — as the Idaho Constitution allows — and now it’s on to the House for further consideration. We shall see if the House has the conservative muscle equal to the Senate’s to reject the bloated pay raise and take further important steps toward controlling Idaho’s out-of-control state spending. There is hope, but our confidence is low. The House has a deadline of January 31st to act on the resolution under the provisions of the Constitution. Let’s see what happens next.
Lawyers are a dime a dozen in this Country. If they can make that kind of $$ on the outside, let them go and try. The reason they want these jobs is because of the Retirement benefits. If they worked on the outside, they would have to have a retirement fund of some kind .