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State employees sent a deluge of comments asking lawmakers for higher pay to address high turnover and rising costs of living. The Change in Employee Compensation Committee on Dec. 20 received an overview of the more than 1,700 responses seeking comment as the group prepares to make a recommendation to the state’s budget writers. Human Resources Administrator Janelle White told members she recommends a 4% increase to employee salaries or a $1.25 an hour increase, with discretion given to agencies to decide to implement either the percentage increase or dollar amount. She recommended a 5.5% increase for IT/engineering employees, which has a turnover rate of nearly 26%. “When employees leave the state it has a profound and lasting impact on the bottom line in our ability to deliver services,” White said. “The hidden cost of turnover is frequently overlooked yet its consequences are very costly to the state.” Statewide, the average turnover rate was around 19% last year, White said. She estimated that it cost roughly $301 million to replace 19.2% of Idaho’s state employee workforce. In 2023, White presented the committee a report detailing how far behind Idaho’s compensation was in comparison to the public and private sector and recommended greater increases for public safety, IT/engineering, and nursing and health care staff pay. White recommended last week that lawmakers implement the IT/engineering salary structure improvement this coming session. She said that the average market salary for these positions is around $36,000 a year more than the average state salary. Primary state employees who don’t fall into specialized categories fall about $22,250 behind the average market salary. In fiscal year 2024, Idaho spent about 21% of the state budget on personnel at around $1.9 billion; the recommendation White provided would bring this to about $2.3 billion, she said. Alberto Gonzalez, head of the Office of Information Technology Services, told the committee that state IT employees created the “backbone of our cybersecurity infrastructure.” “I think not investing increases our chance of cyber attack,” he said. Idaho State Police Director Col. Bill Gardiner told lawmakers that several regions in the state faced particularly high turnover and vacancy rates, such as near Lewiston. The district has eight vacant patrol positions, which leaves 13 current troopers patrolling a 13,000-square-mile area, he said. Most of the public comment the committee received came from Idaho Transportation Department staff, with close to 350 respondents, as well as more than 150 responses each from Idaho State Police, the Department of Health and Welfare, and Boise State University. Many of the comments from ITD employees focused on high turnover and its impact on the workload of remaining employees, cost of living, and the safety concerns of working near high-speed traffic. One Idaho Falls-based employee said their compensation of $25.12 an hour allows them to “meet basic living expenses,” but it “is increasingly inadequate to keep pace with the growing costs of housing, fuel and groceries.” The employee also underscored the risk of working near traffic traveling 80 mph. A North Idaho state trooper who’s been with the agency for 15 years said they have seen the housing market skyrocket and the impact that has had on recruitment and retention in the area. “I’ve observed Troopers work long shifts covering crashes, arrests, pursuits, and other heinous acts which changes a person’s life, only to return to their small camper parked on someone else’s property because that’s all they could afford based off the provided wage,” the trooper wrote. The longtime officer asked lawmakers to consider existing employees when changing the structure to avoid pay compression — in which new hires in a competitive market end up making more than, or nearly as much as, longstanding employees. The state’s retirement and health plans are often touted as a recruitment tool, but aren’t as highly regarded, comments indicated. “While benefits are valued, employees feel they no longer sufficiently offset the low wages or the competitive advantage compared to private sector jobs,” legislative Budget and Policy Analyst Frances Lippitt said. Costs related to inflation came up on 381 of the responses, Lippitt said. A number of emailed comments mentioned the approximately $5,000 pay bump for legislators recommended by the Citizens’ Committee on Legislative Compensation in November, the Idaho Capital Sun reported. The citizens’ committee does not include legislators, but the Legislature may reject or reduce the recommended rates by concurrent resolution. “I advocate that all state employees get paid appropriately, to meet the cost of living,” one health department employee wrote. “... I also assert that if the state legislature wants a raise, that the same raise should apply to every state employee. Otherwise, if the legislators truly want to be leaders, they have no right to a raise until state staff meet the cost of living.” The committee did not make a decision and is scheduled to meet again Jan. 7 and Jan. 9.Trump Seeks TikTok Reprieve in Pursuit of Political Solution

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Donald Trump Asks Supreme Court to Delay TikTok BanA judge on Monday granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss the election subversion case against Donald Trump because of a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. Judge Tanya Chutkan agreed to the request by Special Counsel Jack Smith to dismiss the case against the president-elect "without prejudice," meaning it could potentially be revived after Trump leaves the White House four years from now. "Dismissal without prejudice is appropriate here," Chutkan said, adding in the ruling that "the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office." Trump, 78, was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House, but the cases never came to trial. Smith also moved on Monday to drop his appeal of the dismissal of the documents case filed against the former president in Florida. That case was tossed out earlier this year by a Trump-appointed judge on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed. The special counsel paused the election interference case and the documents case this month after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 presidential election. Smith cited the long-standing Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president in his motions to have the cases dismissed. "The Government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed," Smith said in the filing with Chutkan. "But the circumstances have." "It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President," Smith said. "As a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated." In a separate filing, Smith said he was withdrawing his appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump but pursuing the case against his two co-defendants, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the cases were "empty and lawless, and should never have been brought." "Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party's fight against their Political Opponent, ME," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before." Trump was accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding -- the session of Congress called to certify Biden's win, which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021 by a mob of the then-president's supporters. Trump was also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election. The former and incoming president also faces two state cases -- in New York and Georgia. He was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter. However, Judge Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing while he considers a request from Trump's lawyers that the conviction be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court ruling in July that an ex-president has broad immunity from prosecution. In Georgia, Trump faces racketeering charges over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in office. cl/sms