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ITD seeks targeted pay increase to reduce maintenance turnover and fill frontline operations jobs
Summary
Idaho Transportation Department requested a targeted $2.5 million CEC to raise hourly pay for roughly 505 maintenance and transportation technician positions by $2.50, aiming to reduce turnover that the director said averaged 78 maintenance departures per year.
The Idaho Transportation Department asked the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee for a targeted compensation increase intended to reduce turnover among frontline maintenance staff and to help fill newly approved positions.
Brooke Dupree, the Legislative Services Office budget analyst, outlined that the Highway Operations Division requested a targeted cost-of-living or compensation adjustment affecting about 505 transportation positions that would raise those pay steps by $2.50 per hour. Dupree also reviewed a separate workforce-planning appropriation approved last year that added 53 district-level maintenance and technician positions.
Director Scott Stokes said the department has experienced high departure rates among maintenance employees: “The last 3 years, our average departure rate, just in maintenance employees, has been an average of 78 per year out of about 400,” he told the committee. Stokes said many new hires need additional training — including obtaining commercial driver’s licenses and equipment operation certifications — which delays their full productivity and increases training costs.
Committee members asked practical questions about whether raises would keep workers once trained. Stokes said retention improved when the department previously implemented horizontal career paths and that entry wages and step increases helped retention. He said the department has been recruiting for the 53 positions added last year and reported approximately half of them hired to date and total vacancies across ITD of roughly 60–70 positions.
The committee did not take a formal vote. Members asked for additional detail on how the targeted CEC would interact with other proposed statewide CEC adjustments and how ITD would implement pay-step increases without creating compression problems between career steps.
