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ITD seeks targeted CEC increases and reports progress hiring 53 new maintenance positions
Summary
ITD told legislators it added 53 frontline district positions last year and is seeking targeted cost‑of‑employment adjustments to raise pay across maintenance career steps to improve retention and reduce churn during the first year of employment.
At the committee hearing, the Idaho Transportation Department described workforce steps it has taken and requested targeted pay increases to reduce turnover and preserve institutional knowledge.
Brooke Dupree told the committee the department received 53 new frontline positions last year, primarily transportation technicians and engineering assistants. Director Scott Stokes and other ITD officials said retention is a concern: the department has averaged roughly 78 maintenance employee departures per year in recent years and often spends months training new hires — particularly to obtain commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) required for many maintenance roles.
To address retention and recruitment, ITD requested a targeted career‑step pay increase that would raise rates across five hundred‑and‑five (505) positions in the department’s maintenance career ladders by $2.50 per hour for each step, according to the legislative budget book. Director Stokes explained the department’s horizontal career paths include multiple steps; raising only entry pay would compress steps, so ITD proposed raising all steps to preserve the pay progression. Stokes said the improvement would reduce churn in the first years of employment and shorten the time the department spends repeatedly training entry‑level hires.
Committee members asked for supporting wage surveys and comparisons with counties and cities. Stokes said ITD surveyed local governments and found many counties and cities pay $20–$25 an hour for entry maintenance jobs, and that ITD’s internal analysis showed entry pay historically was much lower before career paths were implemented. Several legislators asked whether higher pay would simply shift turnover to the private sector or local governments; Stokes said most departures are to cities and counties and that stabilizing starting pay helps retention.
Representative Petzke and others asked for follow‑up details and asked ITD to provide more granular lists of software, ongoing license costs and funding sources related to prior software appropriations. ITD agreed to provide further detail on software inventories and the funding of ongoing IT purchases.
No formal action was taken; committee members requested follow‑up materials on wage surveys, vacancy statistics and the long‑term cost/benefit of the proposed targeted adjustments.
