The Idaho Division of Human Resources is recommending the Idaho Legislature approve salary increases of 4% or $1.25 per hour for all permanent state employees.

Idaho Division of Human Resources Administrator Janelle White made the recommendation Friday during a meeting of the Idaho Legislature’s Change in Employee Compensation Committee meeting at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.

White recommended the 4% salary increase, along with flexibility to distribute the funds for recruitment and retention. She also recommended increasing the salary structure midpoints for positions including public safety and nursing and recommended a 5.5% market-based increase for the salary structure for IT and engineering positions.

White said the Division of Human Resources issued the recommendation after receiving testimony from more than 1,700 state employees.

“Across all pay ranges, employees consistently cite rising cost of living as a major concern with current wages failing to keep pace,” White said. “They are concerned about pay compression, which is where new or less experienced employees earn as much or more than more tenured employees. Turnover and vacant positions are leading to increased workloads and burnout.”

Pay and benefits are important for several reasons. The state is one of the largest employers in Idaho, and these decisions directly affect thousands of Idaho families.

Additionally, many state agencies struggle with retention because state employees in many fields make far less than their counterparts at private businesses and even at city and county jobs, White said. Last year’s turnover rate was 19.2%.
The situation is exacerbated because of inflation and surging increases in housing costs in Idaho.

“In the last decade, inflation has risen by more than 30% while the average base salary for state employees has only increased by 4.2%,” White said.

“As a result, employees are finding it harder to afford basic expenses such as housing, food, transportation, health care and other essential goods and services,” White added. “As Idahoans continue to rely on the contributions of these dedicated individuals, it is crucial to recognize and appreciate the invaluable role they play in our society and to ensure they can provide necessities for their families.”

Part-time Idaho legislators set to receive larger pay increase than state employees

Meanwhile, Idaho legislators are set to receive a much higher salary increase next year of 25%.

Idaho citizens committee approves legislative salary increases

Last month, a different committee – the Citizens Committee on Legislative Compensation – approved increasing the annual salary for Idaho legislators from $19,913 to $25,000, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Rather than a full time legislative body, the Idaho Legislature is a part-time, seasonal legislature that generally meets for about 80 to 90 days each year.

Some Republican legislators have vowed to fight their pay raise.  

Low pay for Idaho state employees can lead to high turnover

White told legislators there is a high cost to continually recruit and retrain new employees to replace the state employees who quit their jobs to make higher pay doing the same kind of work somewhere else. 

State employees make an average of $20,000 less per year than they would doing the same job for a different employer, White said. Over the course of a 30-year career, that would cost an average state employee $600,000 in lost wages to work for the state.

“When employees leave the state, it has a profound and lasting impact on the bottom line and our ability to deliver services,” White said. “The hidden cost of turnover is frequently overlooked, yet its consequences are very costly to the state. A general rule of thumb is that it costs an organization one to three times an employee’s annual salary to replace them.”
Nothing was settled Friday. 

The Change in Employee Compensation Committee is scheduled to meet again Jan. 7 and Jan. 9, and the Idaho Legislature will have the final say on pay and benefits for state employees during the upcoming 2025 legislative session.

One organization is aiming to help forest managers recover the trees lost in one of Idaho’s most devastating fires this summer. 

On Nov. 3, the nonprofit Daughters of the American Revolution launched a fundraising campaign to raise money to help restore scorched south and central Idaho forests. 

The Wapiti Fire, which began on July 24 by a lightning strike two miles southwest of Grandjean, spanned about 130,000 acres across the Boise National Forest, Sawtooth National Forest and the Salmon-Challis National Forest. 

Coined the Pinecone Project, the funds raised will be used to hire professional tree climbers for the Sawtooth National Forest who will pick pinecones off trees to harvest mature seeds that will be used to grow and eventually replant trees back into the Sawtooth National Forest.

As of Monday, the Pinecone Project had raised a total of $11,500, including cash and check donations outside of the PayPal fundraiser, lead organizer Janice Beller said. 

Beller is the Idaho state leader of the nonprofit. Like others in the organization, she is a descendant of someone who participated in the American Revolution. Conservation is important to the organization and important to her as a fifth generation Idahoan, she told the Idaho Capital Sun. 

“Stanley is one of my favorite places in the world, and it has been in my family for years —  literally generations,” she said. “When Stanley burned this summer, it just broke my heart and really had a kind of a profound impact on many members within Daughters of the American Revolution.” 

‘We have a lot of need for seed’: Sawtooth forester says 

Beller said a member of her leadership team reached out to a Stanley forest ranger to ask how they could help restore the forest. That’s when she learned about the shortage in seeds at Lucky Peak Nursery, located off Highway 21 outside of Boise.

Nelson Mills, the timber and silviculture program manager for the Sawtooth National Forest, said his biggest challenge is that forest staff hasn’t collected enough its seeds to replenish its seed bank at Lucky Peak Nursery.

Forest service staff right now have enough seeds to cover 50 to 80 acres of trees suitable for the Stanley area at its nursery, Mills said. However, that is not nearly enough to recover the forest from the Wapiti Fire.

Mills said that wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem, but catastrophic wildfires like the Wapiti Fire will require artificial tree restoration. Of the 130,000 acres that were burned in the Wapiti Fire, 485 acres have been identified as requiring immediate reforestation need because the seed bed was completely burnt, Mills said. When a more formal assessment is done this winter, forest staff will likely find more acres in need of seedling planting, he said.

In addition to the seed shortage, harvesting pinecones is a complicated, risky and expensive process, Mills said. 

The main way to collect pinecone seeds is by hiring professional tree climbers for $2,500 a day. Equipped with harnesses and spurred boots, they climb trees between 75 and 120 feet tall to collect pinecones at the perfect ripeness.

Timing is crucial, as ripeness varies by species and elevation, typically occurring between mid-August to mid-September, Mills said. An unripe pinecone won’t have a viable embryo, an overripe pinecone opens and releases its seeds, and pinecones that have fallen on the ground have been exposed to mold — making the seeds unsuitable for use, he said.

The pinecones are then transferred to Lucky Peak Nursery where they are tested, processed, cleaned and sown to make baby lodgepole pines, ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. 

Mills said Project Pinecone creates flexibility for foresters because it is not congressionally appropriated. If it’s not a good pinecone producing year, he said foresters can wait until the next year, or look at other species in a different area. 

“Everybody is stepping up through all phases of this reforestation issue to make a solution and grow forests back specifically in the Stanley basin that was affected by the Wapiti Fire,” Mills said. “It is an amazing collaborative effort, and I am just so thankful that people want to get together and grow a forest ecosystem.”

Fundraiser to last until spring 2025

Beller said the fundraiser will last until May, when she plans to hold a ceremony to present the funds to the Stanley community and forest officials. She said she is encouraging individuals to donate, as it is tax deductible, and people who donate more than $10 will receive a wooden magnet with the project’s logo. 

The total goal of the project is to raise $15,000, which would pay for six days of pinecone picking. 

The fundraiser is partnering with Boise Cascade, which committed to a day’s worth of pinecone picking to the project. 

“Boise Cascade’s roots run deep in the state of Idaho, and we are honored to contribute to this incredible project to help restore some of Idaho’s most cherished forest lands that were burned during the brutal fire season of summer 2024,” Boise Cascade Vice President of Human Resources and contributions committee chair Angella Broesch, told the Sun. “As one of the largest producers of wood products in North America and a leading wholesale distributor of building products in the U.S., our company is committed to contributing to responsible forestry practices and protecting our environment.”

Having surpassed the halfway point of its goal, Beller said the successful donations show how much people from Idaho and outside of Idaho care about the Stanley area.

“We’ve heard so many people say that it’s truly the heart of Idaho, and it means a great deal to them and their families,” Beller said. “So to see everybody come together and contribute even just a little to bring it back is very humbling.”

A new report on the Idaho Transportation Department’s former State Street headquarters in Boise estimates it would cost at least twice the amount of money the Idaho Legislature provided earlier this year to renovate the flood-damaged property. 

It’s not clear what happens next to the empty and contaminated property. But one thing is sure – the state did not set aside nearly enough money to get the building back in safe, usable condition for state employees.

The issue involves the Idaho Transportation Department former Boise headquarters located at 3311 W. State St. On Jan. 2, 2022, the building flooded, was contaminated with asbestos and all ITD employees working at the building were displaced, according to court and ITD records.

Mold was also detected at the property, ITD officials said.

The building, which was completed in 1961, has sat vacant since 2022. Other buildings on the 44-acre campus have been in use since the flood, state officials told the Idaho Capital Sun.

The Idaho Transportation Department board declared the State Street property “surplus property” the summer after the flood, which paved the way for the entire 44-acre campus the headquarters sits on to be sold.

But in March, the Idaho Legislature suddenly blocked the $51.7 million sale of the State Street campus to a group of developers that included Hawkins Companies, FJ Management and Pacific West Communities.

Legislators argued it would be a better deal for the taxpayers to block the sale, hold on to the State Street campus, renovate it and use it for state employees again. Legislators agreed to provide $32.5 million to renovate the building, based on a rudimentary, sight-unseen estimate provided by the Idaho Division of Public Works. The estimate from the Idaho Division of Public Works was not a full estimate and did not take into account the amount of flood damage or HVAC repairs, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. 

Then on Thursday, the Idaho Transportation Department released a new 207-page “Property Condition Assessment” report. The new report lists repair estimates ranging from $64 million to $69.4 million.

The $64 million “level 1” estimate provides the estimated cost to allow state employees to move back into a safe, secure and comfortable building that meets the same standards as a typical state office building.

The $69.4 million “level 2” estimate includes all level 1 upgrades, plus a new fire suppression sprinkler system and recommendations for an open floor plan design to allow longterm occupancy and adaptability, according to the report.

Architects and consultants with CSHQA completed the property condition assessment report that includes the $64 million and $69.4 million estimates. Notably, the assessment is not a formal repair bid, so actual renovation and repair costs could vary from the assessment.

Rep. Wendy Horman, the Idaho Falls Republican who serves as co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said legislators took action based on the $32.5 million estimate provided by the Idaho Division of Public Works.

“We used the numbers that were provided to us,” Horman said in a phone interview Thursday. “So it is interesting to see such a large discrepancy between what was provided to us and acted on in good faith during the legislative session and these new numbers.”

Horman said she does not know what comes next for the ITD State Street campus. She said it will be a discussion point during the upcoming 2025 legislative session, and she expects to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the estimates.

“It is interesting to see that nine months later we are given one (cost estimate) that is essentially double,” Horman added.

When asked what will happen next, Idaho Transportation Department officials provided the Sun with a written statement saying they will take the latest estimates to the Idaho Transportation Department board in January. ITD officials also said they will seek a building design.

“Based on current legislative direction, ITD will continue to work with (Idaho Division of Public Works) to advance the project,” the statement read. “In the current assessment, CSHQA has identified extensive repairs due to the age of the building, the flood damage and the subsequent deferred maintenance since the 2022 vacancy. A building design will provide the necessary detail to execute the rehabilitation work and provide a more accurate cost estimate. This estimate would inform ITD’s appropriation request, as needed, in future fiscal years.”

Inside of former Idaho Transportation Department Boise headquarters looks like disaster site

ITD officials allowed the Idaho Capital Sun and other local journalists to tour the inside of the flood damaged property on Thursday. 

Even three years after the flood, a damp, musty smell permeates the building.

Numerous walls, ceilings, carpets and floors show visible water damage stains.

Crews drilled dozens of holes in many of the building’s interior walls to help water escape and walls dry after water flooded down the walls and elevator shafts, ITD officials said.

Exposed electrical wiring, tangles of twisted metal and pieces of broken wood are scattered across some of the hallways. 

Chairs and desks are stacked haphazardly, and in some cases toppled in piles.
Emergency exit signs have been ripped from ceilings and dangle from loose wires.

Elevator doors are propped open.

The heat and lights only work in some parts of the building.

Despite the contaminated mess, stained ITD coffee cups still sit on some of the desks, project notes are still scribbled in red marker on whiteboards and even a few Christmas decorations from 2021 are still affixed to office doors and windows.

In short, it looks like a disaster scene.

When the would-be buyers including Hawkins Companies made the high bid for the State Street campus, they planned to demolish and build new, not renovate the flood-damaged building.