Idaho Bills

Amends and adds to existing law to revise provisions regarding salaries of judges, to establish the Citizens' Committee on Judicial Compensation, and to establish provisions regarding judicial compensation as determined by the Citizens' Committee on Judicial Compensation.

Low rates of judicial compensation continue to exacerbate the Judicial Branch’s growing recruitment problem. Pay for Idaho’s judges not only ranks near dead-last nationally, but also now fails to compete with the compensation of other Idaho public sector attorneys. In order to address this serious issue and ensure experienced, high-quality candidates apply for judicial service, this bill seeks to: (1) significantly increase salaries for all judicial positions over a four (4) year span, and (2) create a Citizens’ Committee on Judicial Compensation to establish future judicial salaries. Specifically, this proposal will amend I.C. § 59-502 to increase the salary of supreme court justices by 10% in 2025 and revise the pay differentials between judicial positions to a percentage basis in order to avoid future compression. Accordingly, the corresponding 2025 increases will be 9.8% for court of appeals judges, 8.2% for district judges, and 7.9% for magistrate judges. Thereafter, each judicial position will receive an additional 5% salary increase in 2026, 2027, and 2028. In 2022, a pay increase for Idaho’s judges was tied to a policy proposal to revise the judicial selection process. That proposal failed to become law, and as a result, Idaho’s judges were the only state employees not to receive an increase in compensation. Similarly, judicial CEC has been tied to a policy proposal this year. In order to separate the question of judicial compensation from political considerations, and in an effort to allow a more thorough assessment of the need for future increases in judicial salaries, this bill also seeks to create a Citizens’ Committee on Judicial Compensation. This Committee is modeled specifically after the Citizens’ Committee on Legislative Compensation established in I.C. § 67-406a, and it will consist of three (3) citizen members appointed by the Governor and three (3) citizen members appointed by agreement of the Pro Tem and Speaker. The Committee will establish th