BOISE - Some North Idaho lawmakers were on an 18-member panel that voted Friday to support 2 percent pay raises for Idaho's 17,000 state workers, in opposition with Gov. Butch Otter's recommendation earlier this week.

"Economic conditions are improving, but we still have a ways to go," Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Coeur d'Alene, said Friday. "But this is a good first step."

Members of the Idaho Legislature's Joint Change in Employee Compensation Committee unanimously recommended a 1 percent bonus and 1 percent permanent pay raise for state employees starting July 1.

Mendive added: "I was quite pleased that it was unanimous. It was a bipartisan effort. That's pretty good."

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, said he supported the motion because he believes the state can fund the increase, and it will help make the state competitive in employee compensation.

"We have a constitutional mandate to balance our budget and revenue projections are always a best guess," Goedde told The Press. "The worst thing I have ever seen done to state employees was when the governor ordered a holdback the last time our expenditures outpaced our revenue."

He pointed to the recent Hay study that shows the state's current compensation schedule is 29 percent behind where it should be.

"Even when you add the benefits back, which are a pretty good package compared to the private sector, we are behind," Goedde said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Neil Anderson, R-Blackfoot, co-chair of the compensation committee, said sources have told him that legislative leadership is supportive of that recommendation.

The price tag for the increases in pay "to be paid at the discretion of department heads," to state workers in the recommendation would be $11 million, or $5.5 million in permanent raises and $5.5 million in bonuses.

State workers have had their pay cut since the recession in 2008, including through furloughs.

They last got a similar 2 percent pay increase during the 2012 Legislature.

During his State of the State speech on Monday, Otter didn't recommend a pay increase for state workers, saying there wasn't enough money this year.

The governor has suggested about $12.7 million in state general fund money be used to pay for "the employer-provided share of the increased cost of health benefits."

But Mendive said he viewed state aid on health benefits costs to be a kind of raise.

"It is a raise, it's just you don't appreciate it," Mendive said. "It's still a raise. I mean, it's an increased cost to the state. Health care costs are going up. So, that is a raise. It just not like we'd like to think of it, as if we're spending money."

The committee also recommended the $12.7 million to be paid from the state's general fund to cover the increased health benefits costs.

This does not include pay for the state's public school teachers, whose compensation remains unchanged under Otter's proposal.

The recommendations now go to the full Legislature, including the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, for consideration.

Press staff writer Maureen Dolan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.