Low Wages Driving Idaho Troopers to Jobs in Wash.: ‘I Don’t Have Anybody to Send’

Troopers with the Idaho State Police are leaving for similar, better-paying jobs in Washington.

The Washington State Patrol and Spokane Police Department are among the agencies Idaho troopers have joined in the past few years because the jobs offer the highest law enforcement wages, data from the Idaho State Police Association shows.

Idaho State Police with five years of experience are paid at an hourly rate of $32.86, according to agency data. Washington State Patrol officers with similar experience are paid around $60 an hour. Spokane police officers are paid about $58 an hour with the same experience.

The vacancies are putting the agency at a disadvantage, argues Idaho State Police Director Col. Bill Gardiner, who has been working behind the scenes to find a fix.

"We were losing a significant number to Washington State Patrol, especially in Lewiston," he said. "We don't have enough people to handle calls for service as they come in."

As of now, the problem is so dire that all of the Idaho trooper positions in the Lewiston area — just across the border from Washington — are empty.

The Washington agencies allow officers to live in Idaho and commute to work, which makes it more enticing, Gardiner believes. It is partly why Idaho State Police's Coeur d'Alene office is also growing thin on troopers, he said.

Gardiner has resorted to sending troopers from across the state to stay in a Lewiston hotel for a week to cover the town of Moscow. It costs around $10,000 per month, he said.

But the larger problem is the growing shortage of troopers — about 40 at last count.

"We get called on a daily basis from cities and counties around the state for assistance. When they run out of resources, their next call is to me," Gardiner said. "What I don't like is when a sheriff calls and says, 'Can you get me troopers here immediately?' And I have to say, 'I can't. I don't have anybody.' What kind of a state service is that?"

Washington State Patrol has had five officers in the past two years leave Idaho State Police and seek a position with them, according to WSP spokesperson Chris Loftis.

That was when Washington began hiring troopers through lateral transfer and training — but before that, every trooper had to start at an entry-level rank. The eventual switch to lateral transfer and training has "helped us buttress our own trooper vacancy levels," Loftis said.

The Spokane Police Department has employed at least one former Idaho officer every year since 2018, with the exception of 2024 and 2025.

Spokane police were not hiring lateral transfers those years because of how expensive it can be, according to police spokesperson Officer Tricia Leming. The last time Spokane police were hiring lateral transfers, in 2023, four of them transferred from Idaho, data shows.

What's the fix?

Idaho State Police was previously funded through the state's general fund, a highway gas-tax and a "CHOICE" program that charges a $3 annual vehicle registration fee. But legislators cut trooper pay from the gas-tax initiative and never increased the vehicle registration fee. That combination put the agency further and further behind in pay each year, Gardiner said.

Another problem, he said, is that troopers who are set for raises do not get a raise on their full hourly pay. They only get raises on the parts of their wages that come directly from the state's general fund. For example, if a trooper makes $25 an hour, five dollars of that comes from the "CHOICE" project, and the remaining $20 comes from the general fund. If they are approved a 3% raise, the raise only applies to the $20 — not the full $25.

On top of that, Washington has the nation's highest minimum wage, meaning other jobs also tend to pay higher than average.

Gardiner has spent the past two years as director working on a remedy. Through multiple interviews with officers, talking with accountants and calls with their Human Resources department, he came to the conclusion the agency needed around $18 million to place trooper wages somewhere near $45 an hour. That proposal would be sustainable for 10 years, he said.

Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Woodward, representing Sagle, wanted to bring forth a bill this year to help. His proposal would have raised the annual vehicle registration fee to $8, which would have generated around $10 million per year for Idaho State Police.

"We have an identified problem. We are not paying our troopers enough. That is a public safety issue," Woodward told The Spokesman-Review. "If we are going to tax someone, we want to make a strong connection between the money and the service provided. If anyone that has a vehicle pitches in, you are paying for the officers you see on the road. From a policy perspective, that makes sense to me."

Woodward's bill flew through the Senate and passed by a vote of 28-7. It stalled in the House's transportation committee when the chairman, Republican Rep. Joe Palmer of Meridian, never introduced it. Palmer did not respond to a phone call Thursday evening.

"When the gas tax was phased out, there was a promise we'd take care of ISP. We are not living up to that promise," Woodward said. "There is a general unwillingness to raise a fee or tax. You can make arguments about the fee, but I think it really came down to the politics. There is a primary coming up in May."

Rather than move forward with Woodward's bill, Palmer introduced a different bill in the House to allocate $5 million from the general fund to the Idaho State Police. When that was unlikely to be taken up, Palmer introduced another bill that would instead allocate $4 million to the agency using liquor tax funds. The appropriation for 2027 passed the House and Senate this week, but Gardiner is worried it won't do much.

"I am afraid to even call it a Band-Aid. Four million sounds like a lot, but not when you're talking about the gap that is there," he said. "We will implement the new pay plan, just at a smaller rate than what it should be."

Woodward was not a fan of the alternative proposal. He said that money would take already-established revenue away from cities and counties. In the end, Woodward voted for it, "because doing something is better than doing nothing."

When people see a trooper on the street, Gardiner wants people to remember they're there to make people safe.

"They just want to go out and serve," he said. "I've thanked them for not leaving."

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