Top judges seek raises that exceed pay of some other state workers

Current state salary: $167,210

State salary with requested raise: $192,210

Georgia Court of Appeals

State salary: $166,186

State salary with requested raise: $191,186

Superior Court:

*State salary: $120,252

*State salary with requested raise: $135,252

*Superior Court judges also can receive local supplements, ranging from $5,000 to $65,893, depending on the circuit. One circuit does not provide any supplements.

Source: Budget requests from court agencies for fiscal 2016, which begins July 1

Supreme Court salaries in the South, as of Jan. 1:

Virginia

$188,949

Alabama

$180,005

Tennessee

$176,988

Georgia

$167,210

Florida

$162,200

Louisiana

$159,064

South Carolina

$141,286

North Carolina

$138,896

Kentucky

$135,504

Mississippi

$122,460

Source: “The Survey of Judicial Salaries” by the National Center for State Courts

Comprehensive coverage

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will have Georgia’s largest team covering the Legislature in January. No one will have more expertise on issues that matter to taxpayers when legislators return Jan. 12.

Teachers and state employees have gone without substantial raises since before the Great Recession, but top state judges earning $160,000 to $185,000 annually are the ones requesting the biggest pay increases from the General Assembly in January.

If they get what they’re asking for, Georgia’s Supreme Court justices and the state’s Court of Appeals and Superior Court judges will be among the best-paid, and most costly to taxpayers, in the country.

The judges say they are trying to make up for not getting a state pay increase since the administration of Gov. Roy Barnes in the late 1990s. But many Superior Court judges have seen substantial increases in their locally funded pay supplements. And their request comes at a time when the state’s nearly 200,000 teachers and state employees — many of whom earn one-third to one-fifth of what the judges make — are hoping for their first major raise in years.

That makes the judges’ chance of getting even half of what they are requesting iffy from a Legislature sensitive to complaints from local teachers and employees, who have in some cases seen their pay drop because of furloughs.

“We still have (state) people making $21,000 starting salaries,” said House Appropriations Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, who has been lobbied by judges. “When you’ve got people you know are struggling at the bottom end of the scale, it makes it tough to do something at the top of the scale.”

Documents reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show the Supreme Court and Appeals Court budget requests include $25,000 pay raises for judges in fiscal 2016, which begins July 1. Superior Court judges would get a $15,000 boost in state pay. Those and other judicial budget pay requests would cost the state about $8 million a year.

Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton, who recently met with a key budget writer to go over the proposal, said the idea is to bump up the judges’ pay for the next three years. That’s to make up for going 16 years without a state increase, although many Superior Court judges have seen their local pay climb.

“A pay raise for judges has been a priority of judges for some time,” Melton said. “That has been put on hold because of budget constraints. We started hearing from some legislators that now might be the time to have that discussion again.”

Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, said he is willing to listen to the judges’ proposal. But he added: “My first impression is, that sounds like a lot of money. We have to be fair to everybody.

“We have the luxury (next year) of addressing pressing issues, and one of the pressing issues is raises for teachers and state employees, and that is where I would put the priority.”

Gov. Nathan Deal is required to include the judges’ recommendations in his budget proposal to the General Assembly in January, whether he agrees with them or not. Lawmakers then rework the budget to their liking. Typically, the Legislature diverts some of the money the judges request to fund its own priorities. So legislators may give judges no raises or much smaller raises than they want. Melton doesn’t expect judges to get everything they request.

Supreme Court justices in Georgia earn $167,210 a year, and Appeals Court judges $166,186. Those figures are slightly above the national average. Getting the full raises requested just for this year would make Georgia’s top judges among the highest paid in the nation. As of Jan. 1, the state Supreme Court’s pay ranked 18th nationally, and the Appeals Court’s pay ranked 11th, according to a National Center for State Courts survey.

Superior Court judges earn about $120,000 in state salary. In all but one circuit, however, they also receive supplements, ranging from $5,000 a year in the Southwestern Circuit to more than $65,000 in Cobb County and Augusta, according to state figures. State legislators from those circuits — often lawyers — regularly file bills to increase those supplements for their judges.

Because of the supplements, Melton said, one-third of Superior Court judges earn more than members of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the highest courts in the state. Some Superior Court judges make $20,000 more per year than members of his court, Melton said.

So part of the proposed increase would help those courts catch up to their top-paid Superior Court colleagues.

Besides the parity issue, Melton said top lawyers in private practice make far more than judges. “The gap is significant for lawyers, and that is the market we are competing against,” he said. “More and more, trial court judges are coming from the (lower paid) public sector instead of the private sector.”

It’s not like the state is having a desperately hard time filling judgeships. Getting a seat on one of the state’s highest courts would be the pinnacle of many a lawyer’s career. And, as one lawmaker said, there are long lines of people seeking judgeships when there are openings, including lawyer-legislators and members of their families who often seek gubernatorial appointments.

While judges must occasionally run for re-election, they rarely face much in the way of political competition. Court historians told the AJC a few years ago that as far as they could determine, no sitting Georgia Supreme Court justice had ever been defeated in an election bid.

Still, House Judiciary Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, a lawyer, supports a raise in part to help make sure top attorneys and judges are willing to take what may be less money to serve on the bench. He said the state’s judicial nominating commission has on occasion had a hard time finding top qualified candidates for judgeships.

“I think there is a need to keep our judges adequately compensated,” he said. “There is a need to have a good pool of qualified jurists serving on the bench.”

Melton said the justices understand that other, much-lower-paid state employees have had it rough since the recession, going without raises or seeing only minimal increases.

“We’re not asking anybody to feel sorry for us,” he said. “We know there are disparities throughout state government. I am sensitive to folks who are trying to work hard and make ends meet.”

The justice said it’s “not likely” the General Assembly will approve the full three-year package, which could amount to more than $40,000 in increases for some top judges.

Melton also understands the politics involved in getting a pay raise approved. He served as the top legal adviser to Gov. Sonny Perdue before the governor put him on the Supreme Court in 2005. A few years later, Perdue vetoed a major pay raise package for judges — sponsored by Willard — in part because he thought judicial retirement benefits were overly generous.

Superior Court judges have already begun talking to lawmakers about the raises, but they are competing with many other voices.

Some new state employees — such as prison guards — earn in a year about what the Supreme Court and Appeals Court are asking for in a pay raise next year.

Deal has sought to boost pay for some of those low-salaried workers, such as corrections and juvenile detention officers. The governor also included money in his budget this year to let state agencies offer some other employees small raises. And he included funding to cut furlough days and give teachers pay raises if districts decided to hand them out. Because of the furloughs, many teachers were earning less than they did before the Great Recession. Not all teachers are getting more money this year, but more are than in 2013.

Sid Chapman, the president of the Georgia Association of Educators, questioned whether the state could afford big raises for judges.

“State employees at every level have been challenged with the budget impacts over the past several years,” he said. “All state workers deserve a raise, but the state’s revenues have not seen the kind of recovery to support a 12 to 15 percent increase in pay for anyone.”

State tax collections are up 4.9 percent for the first five months of fiscal 2015, which began July 1.

State Rep. Ben Harbin, R-Evans, a former House budget chairman, said lawmakers should look at which judges have heavy caseloads and deserve higher pay because of it.

And he said the state should decouple the pay of judges from other state and county employees. For instance, under Georgia code, members of the state Board of Workers’ Compensation are paid 90 percent of what a Court of Appeals judge makes. So board members’ pay would jump $22,000 if Appeals Court judges get the raise they requested.

Harbin said the judges’ request shouldn’t be considered in a vacuum.

“You can’t just give judges a pay raise and not look at teachers and corrections officers,” he said. “You can’t hand out raises to anybody if you’re not helping people making $25,000 to $30,000 a year.”