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Commission of Pardons and Parole asks legislature to increase commissioner pay; director warns of attrition and unpaid prep time
Summary
The Commission of Pardons and Parole requested statutory authority and funding to raise commissioner pay from $300 to $400 per hearing day, citing increasing workloads, unpaid preparation time, and expected turnover among experienced commissioners.
The Joint Finance Preparations Committee received Feb. 4 a request from the Commission of Pardons and Parole to increase the per‑hearing compensation for commissioners from $300 to $400 and to fund replacement laptops. Executive Director Christine Starr, newly in the role, told the committee commissioners do substantial unpaid preparation for hearings and that many commissioners plan to leave, creating a loss of experience.
Background and rationale: Noah Peterson, the legislative analyst, told the committee the commission handled 6,670 decisions in fiscal 2024 (compared with 5,907 in 2017) and last received a pay increase in 2017 (from $200 to $300). The item would require a statute change and the governor’s recommendation included an amount to fund the pay increase if the legislature enacts the statutory change. The fiscal impact of the requested statutory pay increase was estimated in the hearing at about $59,300 if enacted.
Workload and compensation specifics: Director Christine Starr said commissioners typically conduct hearings three weeks each month and perform unpaid preparation. She provided an example calculation: a typical hearing day schedule with ~23 hearings and about 40 pages of attached materials leads to about 26 hours of preparation for a five‑day hearing block — roughly 3.25 days of prep time that commissioners are not compensated for by statute. Starr said she expects substantial commissioner turnover during the coming year and described the pay request as a partial remedy; she called it a "band aid" on a larger structural issue regarding the commission’s part‑time model, compensation for prep time, and training.
Committee response: Senator Wintrow and other members expressed interest in examining commissioner workload, training and compensation against the public‑safety implications of parole decisions. The commission and analysts offered to return with further process work and comparisons of commission models. No legislation or formal vote occurred in the hearing; IDOC had previously been the parent agency but House Bill 462 (2024) moved the commission out from under IDOC into a self‑governing agencies department, the change noted in analyst materials.
