Idaho State Police seeks fee hike to fund $12.6M pay plan as vacancies climb

Noah Peterson, a budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, told the Joint Finance-Appropriation Committee that the Idaho State Police (ISP) is proposing a $12.6 million appropriation from the Law Enforcement Project Choice Fund to implement a new commissioned-officer pay plan and that the FY27 budget assumes a statutory fee change that would raise the Project Choice vehicle-registration fee from $3 to $12.

The request is grounded in staffing shortfalls: Peterson said ISP has 606.67 FTP allocated with 78 positions vacant as of November 2025 and that patrol is the program with the largest concentration of commissioned officers. "If that registration fee were to pass…that new pay plan would be implemented," Peterson said, noting the $12.6 million appropriation would come from the dedicated Project Choice fund and would disappear if the legislature did not change the fee.

Colonel Gardner, director of the Idaho State Police, told legislators the proposal is aimed at a structural problem in how certain fee‑derived pay currently interacts with cost-of-employment changes (CECs). Gardner said many premium payments under the current Project Choice system are paid only as add-ons that can be lost (for example, if an officer no longer holds a specific instructor certification), and that CECs are currently applied only to the general-fund portion of wages. "So when a trooper is told, hey, you got a 3% CEC, they didn't. They really got, like, a 2.7% CEC because it was only on part of their pay," Gardner said. His office proposes folding durable pay items — such as college degrees and permanent POST certifications — into base pay so future CECs apply to a larger wage base.

Peterson and Gardner said the fee increase is projected to raise approximately $18 million annually; the immediate appropriation requested is $12.6 million. Gardner said the larger projected revenue is intended to sustain the plan over time and that the proposal contains a safeguard: projected fund balances would be subject to a waterfall that returns excess amounts (if fund balances grow past a set threshold) to the general fund.

Legislators pressed several follow-ups: Representative Price asked whether lawmakers had considered a smaller fee increase or a middle ground between the $12.6 million appropriation and the $18 million revenue projection. Gardner responded that staff modeled a plan sized to sustain itself and that the $18 million projection is meant to provide durability, not surplus inflation. Senator Quick and others asked why patrol spending and dedicated funds rose in the FY27 presentation; Peterson tied the increase specifically to the commission pay plan concentrated in patrol, where most commissioned officers are assigned.

Committee members also raised concerns about interagency wage effects. Representative Harris asked whether raising ISP pay risks pulling deputies from county sheriff offices. Gardner said he does not see an unchecked "wage war" as feasible because ISP has a limited number of FTPs and because ISP often serves as a force multiplier that helps counties rather than draining their entire workforces.

The presentation also included other FY27 requests that would not depend on the fee change, including a $500,000 federal increase for Commercial Vehicle Safety (MCSAP), a $551,500 one-time federal pilot to purchase 55 Mobile Live Scan devices (40 for ISP, 15 for rural agencies), and $3.23 million for replacement items including 27 patrol vehicles and ballistic vests.

Colonel Gardner underscored operational impacts tied to vacancies: he described districts (Lewiston, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Falls) with substantial shortages that force the agency to temporarily billet troopers from other regions, pay lodging and per diem, and reassign specialized teams. He also related a recent on‑duty injury during a pursuit that left a trooper’s hand seriously wounded and urged lawmakers to consider the human and operational costs of prolonged understaffing. "He is meeting with a specialist to try to determine if he's still gonna have the use of his hand," Gardner said.

The committee did not take a vote on the Project Choice statute or any appropriation during the session. Members asked staff for additional detail on fund projections and for a breakdown of how the requested appropriation would be distributed across ranks and programs; Peterson and agency staff agreed to provide more data for follow-up deliberations.

The committee moved on to other agenda items after the ISP presentation; the fee proposal remains subject to separate legislative action and potential amendment.