A state commission is recommending another round of big pay raises for many Georgia judges and district attorneys a year after the General Assembly approved pay hikes for the same group.
The compensation commission recommended that the base state pay for superior court judges jump by nearly a third and that Supreme Court judges get 12.5 percent increases.
At the same time, the commission recommended phasing out “local supplements,” which friendly lawmakers and local officials tack onto the pay of superior court judges and district attorneys. Judges and district attorneys with big local add-ons would see no raises under the recommendations.
Such supplements have made superior court judges in the Augusta area — at $207,000 a year — the highest paid trial court judges in the country, the commission report said. Metro Atlanta judges have also gotten big pay boosts from the supplements. Meanwhile, many superior court judges are paid more than counterparts at the top of the state's judicial ladder, the Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
Gus Makris, the commission’s chairman and a tax lawyer for Turner Broadcasting, said the panel’s aim was to make recommendations that could help attract top lawyers to judicial and legal posts.
“It is a restructuring so that you get good people willing to serve the public interest,” Makris said.
House Appropriations Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, an ex-officio member of the commission, said Friday that he didn't know whether lawmakers would consider giving judges, district attorneys and public defenders raises again in 2017.
It may be a particularly difficult sell during the upcoming session because lawmakers just approved salary increases for them in 2015.
In the report, Makris said the judicial salary system in Georgia is fraught with inconsistencies.
“The chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia is the eighty-ninth highest paid judge in the state,” the report said. “Certain superior court judges are the highest paid trial court judges in the country, and other superior court judges are among the lowest paid trial court judges in the country.
“The pay of two assistant district attorneys, or two assistant public defenders, who have the same experience and do the same job, may differ by thousands of dollars.”
“They are the result of thousands of people making thousands of disconnected decisions that may be influenced by any number of related factors, including local politics, the state budget, the county budget, the recent financial crisis, state compensation that is below-market, and a lack of cost-of-living adjustments.”
Under the commission’s proposal, which lawmakers would have to approve, pay for members of the Georgia Supreme Court would jump from roughly $175,000 to $200,000, with the chief justice receiving $205,000. Appeals Court judges salaries would go from $174,500 to $190,000, with the chief judge getting $195,000.
The base state pay for superior court judges would go from $126,265-$132,265, depending on whether they have an accountability court, to $165,000-$175,000. If they currently make more because of local supplements they would keep their current salaries. Newly-elected or appointed judges would only get the state pay.
District Attorneys would get a similar deal — either keep the current setup with supplements or see their state pay go from about $120,000-$126,000 to $150,000-$160,000. A state salary of $160,000 would be comparable to the starting base salary for first-year associates at large Atlanta law firms and the maximum salary paid to assistant U.S. attorneys, the report said.
Makris said the pay raises would cost the state about $13 million a year, but the exact amount isn’t known because it’s unclear how many judges and district attorneys would give up local supplements and take the higher base state pay. Eliminating the supplements would save local governments about $10 million.
But it is unlikely a judge in Richmond County or Cobb County now earning about $200,000 with local government supplements would agree to give them up.
During the 2015 General Assembly session lawmakers agreed to raises for judges and district attorneys, based in part on the repeated assertion that they hadn't gotten pay increases for many years. In fact, because of the local supplements, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that some superior court judges received pay raises more frequently than teachers and other state employees.
In Cobb County, pay for superior court judges increased about 40 percent because local lawmakers passed supplement bills 12 of the past 16 years.
Lawmakers nonetheless voted some judges $12,000 raises. By contrast, the General Assembly included 1 percent more money that year for state agencies to provide raises to their employees, an increase that amounted to a few hundred dollars for many.
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