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ITD seeks targeted pay increases to retain maintenance crews as turnover strains operations
Summary
Idaho Transportation Department asked JFAC for a targeted CEC to raise pay roughly $2.50 per hour across maintenance career steps to reduce turnover in entry maintenance positions; lawmakers questioned whether higher public wages will outpace local governments and private employers.
The Idaho Transportation Department asked the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee for a targeted career engineering compensation (CEC) adjustment to lift pay for maintenance employees across the department’s horizontal career paths, citing high turnover and training costs.
Scott Stokes, ITD director, said the department’s maintenance turnover has averaged roughly 78 departures per year out of about 400 maintenance employees, a rate that increases training and recruitment costs. Stokes told the committee the targeted request is intended to raise the entire progression of steps for maintenance roles rather than only increasing entry-level pay to avoid compression.
“We’re losing, the last 3 years, our average departure rate, just in maintenance employees, has been an average of 78 per year out of about 400,” Stokes said. He explained ITD spends significant resources training new hires, including obtaining commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) and specialized equipment certifications. Several lawmakers pressed whether raises would simply push market wages higher and fail to improve retention. Representative Elaine Mitchell noted private employers and counties often match or exceed state starting wages and asked whether ITD could hold employees after investing in training; Stokes said retention improved after earlier career-path adjustments but acknowledged market competition from cities, counties and private employers.
The department requested funding that would raise pay for approximately 505 maintenance-related positions and move entire career-path pay tables up $2.50 per hour to address pay compression across steps; cost was presented in the governor’s recommendation and department materials. ITD also described the horizontal-career-path model and how employees earn increases through performance and team metrics.
Why it matters: Maintenance crews perform snow removal, pavement preservation and other on-the-ground work that affects safety and mobility. ITD argued that higher starting and step wages reduce churn, cut the time and cost to certify new employees, and preserve institutional knowledge needed for emergency response and seasonal operations.
Committee members asked for wage-survey detail and comparisons; Stokes said ITD has surveyed county and city wages and found many local jurisdictions paying $20–$25 per hour at entry for comparable maintenance roles, which informed the decision to request a larger targeted adjustment. The committee asked ITD to provide further documentation tying the requested pay increases to retention, recruitment timelines and long-term operational savings.
Outlook: No immediate action recorded. Members asked the agency for supporting data and to clarify interaction between the targeted CEC request and any broader CEC increases under consideration by the legislature.
