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Idaho Department of Labor director outlines benefits, fraud enforcement and workforce services to House committee
Summary
Director Janie Revere told a House committee that Idaho’s unemployment insurance program remains solvent, the department reduced employer UI tax rates for 2025, and the state’s disability-determination office is processing claims faster than most states.
At a meeting of a state House committee, Janie Revere, director of the Idaho Department of Labor, gave an overview of the department’s programs, unemployment insurance rules and claims-processing work, and answered lawmakers’ questions.
Revere told the committee that “the Department of Labor is divided into 3 divisions,” and described the determinations division (which includes unemployment insurance, disability determination services and wage-and-hour functions), the workforce and commissions bureau, and administrative services.
The presentation explained how Idaho’s unemployment insurance (UI) program operates as a federal–state partnership: benefits are paid from a trust fund financed by a tax on employers and administered under state law by department staff. Revere said UI taxes are experience-rated and that claimants must be both monetarily and personally eligible, including having enough wages in Idaho in the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters and being unemployed through no fault of their own, able and available for full-time work.
Revere said claimants in Idaho are eligible for weekly payments between $72 and $590 and for between 10 and 21 weeks under current conditions; the number of weeks increases when the unemployment rate rises, up to a statutory maximum of 26 weeks. She said a new claim remains open for 52 weeks and that claimants must complete weekly certifications to receive payments.
The director described the department’s fraud and compliance work: discrepancies between claimant reports and employer wage reports can create overpayments that the department investigates. Revere said the department can investigate potential frauds for up to five years, may establish repayment plans, and has statutory authority to collect through liens, offsets of tax refunds and wage garnishments. She said Idaho’s UI trust fund is “very solvent,” which allowed the department to decrease employer UI tax rates by 20% for 2025.
On disability claims processing, Revere said Idaho’s Disability Determination Services is federally funded by the Social Security Administration. She told the committee that Idaho’s average decision time is 102 days while the department’s DDS processing time is 61 days, and that Idaho is “leading the nation” on decision time compared with the national average.
Revere also described the department’s workforce offices and services: eight offices across the state, mobile hours in 26 communities, and partnerships with libraries and community centers to provide resume assistance, interview training, apprenticeship creation and services for veterans and youth. She pointed lawmakers to LMI.Idaho.gov for regularly updated local labor-market information.
Lawmakers asked about the size of the labor force and participation rate (which Revere said was 63.6 percent), the effect of retirement and in-migration on workforce supply, how gig work factors into UI eligibility (Revere said most gig work is treated as self-employment and generally not covered by UI), and staffing and fraud metrics (Revere said those figures fluctuate and she would provide exact counts on request).
Revere’s briefing concluded with committee discussion of pending bills; staff and lawmakers praised the department’s work and asked follow-up questions about operational details and statutory language changes.
