Amends existing law to revise provisions regarding salaries of judges.

Judicial Salaries are established by the Legislature in section 59-502, Idaho Code, which also indexes such salaries to a Supreme Court Justice’s salary to avoid salary compression between the four types of judgeships. JudicialsalariesinIdahohavesimplynotkeptpacewithmarketchanges. Insix(6)ofthelastsixteen(16)years no increase to judicial salaries has been provided via amendment to § 59-502. At the same time, salaries for experienced attorneys have increased. The resulting lag of judicial compensation behind the market salaries for other experienced attorney positions creates serious hurdles to recruiting and retaining experienced, qualified attorneys to serve as Idaho’s judges. Five (5) years ago District Judge openings resulted in an average of eleven (11) applicants per position. By this past fiscal year, that number had plummeted to 4.6 candidates per opening, and several recent District Judge openings only received applications from the bare minimum of three (3) candidates. Judges are also leaving the bench to return to other work. While no judges left the bench to returntootherworkinfiscalyear2023, three(3)judgesdidinfiscalyear2024, andfour(4)judgeshavedoneso thus far in fiscal year 2025. Adequate judicial compensation is routinely cited as a primary reason experienced Idaho attorneys do not pursue or continue a judicial career. This bill seeks to establish judicial salaries that are more competitive with the compensation for other public and private sector experienced attorney positions in Idaho and the judicial compensation rates paid by the states surrounding Idaho. Specifically, this bill will increase the salaries of the magistrate judges by seven percent (7%) per year each of the next four (4) years. Due to the dollar amount salary differentials between the types of judgeships, the salaries of the justices of the supreme court, judges of the court of appeals, and district judges will increase slightly less than seven percent (7%) per year each of the next