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Parole commission asks for pay increase as new director warns of imminent turnover
Summary
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole requested statutory authority and funding to raise commissioner pay from $300 to $400 per hearing day, citing heavy uncompensated preparation time and an expected wave of departures.
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole requested statutory authority and funding to raise commissioners’ pay during a Feb. 4 Joint Finance committee hearing, and the commission’s new executive director warned that many commissioners plan to leave if conditions remain unchanged.
Budget analyst Noah Peterson said the commission requested a pay increase from $300 to $400 per compensated hearing day; the governor’s fiscal note and recommendation estimated a fiscal impact of about $59,300 if the Legislature enacts the statutory change. The commission also requested nine replacement laptops recommended by the Office of Information Technology Services.
Executive Director Christine Starr, who said she had been on the job a little over three months, told the committee commissioners are scheduled for hearings three weeks each month, year‑round, and that the current statutory compensation applies only to hearing days. She said commissioners regularly spend substantial unpaid time preparing: in the commission’s scheduling model, five hearing days require roughly 26 hours of preparation work, approximately 3.25 days of unpaid preparation for each five‑day hearing block.
Peterson and Starr told lawmakers that commissioners do not receive pay for the prep work or for essential training, and Starr said the commission faces the loss of more than half of its current commissioners by year‑end if the workload and pay situation is not addressed. The commission handled 6,670 decisions in the last completed fiscal year (2024), up from 5,907 decisions in 2017 when commissioners last received a pay increase.
Starr said she is evaluating the commission’s decision framework and considering models for improving transparency and training. Committee members and the director of the Department of Correction thanked commission staff for their work; no vote occurred on the pay proposal during the hearing and Starr asked for the committee’s consideration of the bill that would be required to increase compensation.
