ITD seeks targeted pay increases, reports hiring progress for new maintenance staff

The Idaho Transportation Department asked the Joint Finance‑Appropriations Committee to approve targeted wage adjustments for maintenance employees and described progress hiring new frontline staff approved in last year’s budget.

Brooke Dupree, Legislative Services Office analyst, said the Highway Operations Division received 53 new frontline positions last year. Director Scott Stokes told the committee ITD had recruited roughly 50 of the 53 positions and that department‑wide vacancies stood “at about 60 to 70 vacancies,” which Stokes characterized as relatively low for a department of ITD’s size.

ITD requested a targeted CEC increase to raise pay for maintenance horizontal career‑path positions by $2.50 per hour across the multiple steps in the pay table; Dupree said the request would affect about 505 positions. Director Stokes explained the department wants to elevate the entire pay scale for the horizontal career paths to avoid compression between steps and to reduce turnover in entry‑level roles.

Stokes described retention challenges in the first one‑to‑two years of employment. He told lawmakers the agency’s maintenance employee departure rate had “been an average of 78 per year out of about 400” maintenance employees in recent years, and that recruitment and training costs are amplified when new hires arrive without a commercial driver’s license (CDL); ITD often spends six to 12 months training staff to obtain a CDL and operate specialized equipment. Stokes said raising starting pay and moving the whole horizontal career ladder up would shorten the recruitment/retention cycle and preserve institutional knowledge.

Lawmakers pressed ITD on whether pay increases could simply be matched by the private sector or local governments, reducing retention gains. Stokes acknowledged that counties and cities sometimes offer higher starting wages — he said many local governments’ entry rates ranged from $20 to $25 per hour in the department’s survey — but said ITD has found that once employees remain with the department for about five years the retention rate stabilizes and employees value state benefits and retirement.

No formal vote or motion was taken during the hearing. Committee members asked ITD staff for more detail on software and ongoing license costs, and the department agreed to follow up with a fuller inventory of software systems and where ongoing costs are funded.