Ways and Means panel introduces bills to inventory vacant positions and require travel reporting

The Idaho House Ways and Means Committee on Oct. 12 introduced two related proposals aimed at increasing transparency around vacant positions and agency travel spending.

Mike Moyle, District 10, told the committee the first proposal, RS32690, would require agencies to identify positions that have been vacant for 180 days, report them to the Legislature and eliminate positions that have been vacant more than 365 days if the agency had budgeted for but not filled the slot. "This RS deals with vacant positions in our state agencies," Moyle said. He described the companion provision requiring agencies to disclose travel spending in budget requests, including destinations and purposes.

The bills are aimed at giving lawmakers information about where salary savings and travel dollars are held inside agency budgets. "We see, like, 30 here, 40 there, 150 here. We're trying to figure out who they are, why they're not being filled, and if they're even needed," Moyle said. He said travel reporting would require agencies to say "what they paid, where the travel was to, what the travel was for" when submitting next-year budget requests.

Representative Birch supported introducing the RSs but cautioned against automatically eliminating positions. "My concern is automatically eliminating the positions though. We might want to not do that if other bills are depending on fill using vacancies to fill them," Birch said, referencing situations where other legislation assumed existing vacancies could absorb new work without new hires. A staff member responding to that concern noted the bills give agencies time—between 180 and 365 days—to explain why a vacancy should remain open.

RS32691 is identical to RS32690 except that its last section would require statewide elected officials to report travel paid for by others. Moyle said the change responds to a bill already on the floor and would extend the same disclosure standard to those officials: "If somebody else is paying for your trip, we need to know who and what." He told the committee some outside groups were opposed to disclosing sponsor information for trips.

Both requests were introduced and advanced by voice vote; the committee did not take roll-call votes or record tallies.

Key procedural details: the committee moved to introduce RS32690 and RS32691 and both motions "carried" on voice votes. No final policy or statutory changes were adopted at this meeting; the measures were placed for further committee consideration.