Top Judge Objects But Raises Denied;

Top Judge Objects But Raises Denied


Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye last week said she was "devastated" that Governor Spitzer's budget agreement with the State Legislature didn't include the $111 million he proposed in January for judicial raises.

JUDITH S. KAYE: Can't spend verbal support. State judges have not received a pay hike or a cost-of-living adjustment in eight years. Ms. Kaye has been lobbying the State Legislature for the past several years to boost salaries for local judges.

Legislative Captives

But the issue was once again apparently held up by Albany politics. Traditionally, judges' pay hikes have been paired with salary boosts for members of the Legislature and high-level officials of the executive branch of government. The Legislature, however, was not included in the proposed bill, because Mr. Spitzer has said he opposes raising their salaries.

Ms. Kaye said that she and other Office of Court Administration officials strongly urged Mr. Spitzer, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno to keep the money for the raises in the budget.

"Nonetheless, in the end, de-linking could not be accomplished, and the issue affecting legislative compensation could not be overcome," Ms. Kaye said in a letter to all state judges.

ELIOT SPITZER: Won't give in to legislators. The pay raise proposal may not be completely dead. Shortly after announcing the budget, Mr. Spitzer told reporters that he wished the judicial pay raises were included, and blamed the Legislature for the change. In addition, Mssrs. Bruno and Silver said that the Legislature needs to keep discussing the matter.

Source of Frustration

Ms. Kaye, however, decried the situation. "Everyone supports the merits of our cause, but the bottom line is the same," her note said.

Securing the raises now would be difficult because the $111 million Mr. Spitzer had advocated has already been set aside to pay for other needs.

The leaders of the Legislature said that the problem was due to Mr. Spitzer's reported reluctance to create a quadrennial commission to set salaries for all three branches of government.

The bipartisan panel, which was proposed by Ms. Kaye and initially supported by Mr. Spitzer, was structured to avoid the same political problems that have torpedoed raises for state judges over the past eight years.

It would convene after each gubernatorial election to set future pay increases for the next four years. The proposed Quadrennial Commission on Executive, Legislative and Judicial Compensation was to be comprised of 13 unpaid appointees, mainly from outside government.

'They Deserve It'

In January, Mr. Spitzer announced that his proposed budget included a plan to give all state judges an average salary increase of 25 percent retroactive to April 1, 2005. In his budget address, the new Governor noted that the cost of living has increased by more than 20 percent since state judges last received a raise.

"I have said for quite some time that the judges in the State of New York deserve a pay raise," he told reporters at the time. "They deserve to be paid a sufficient sum not only so we can persuade lawyers in the private sector to join the ranks of our judiciary, but also to compensate those who are on the bench now for the hard work they do."

Based on his proposed budget, State Supreme Court Justices would have received $168,000 and Family Court, County Court and Surrogate's Court Judges would have gotten 95 percent of that salary. Similarly, New York City Civil and Criminal Court Judges and Long Island District Court Judges would have received 93 percent of that amount as their salary.

The decision to remove the raises from the budget has upset judges. On Jan. 2, four judges filed a lawsuit in Nassau County Supreme Court seeking to force Mr. Spitzer and the Legislature to increase state judges' salaries by as much as 30 percent.

Nassau County Justice Joseph A. DeMarco, a plaintiff in that case, sent an e-mail to other judges recently, calling on them to remove themselves from cases involving the legislators' law firms, citing an inability to be impartial, the New York Law Journal reported.

'Harm to Our Courts'

Ms. Kaye said that she planned to "explore all possibilities available to us." As this paper went to press April 9, she scheduled a press conference meeting of all statewide judicial association presidents to "further our next steps."

"No judiciary can independently uphold the rule of law when its fate hangs on shifting political exigencies," she added. "Rest assured that we will do everything in our power to redress the harm to our courts caused by the latest events."

The salary issue has also become a problem for Federal judges. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts in his year-end report also strongly urged Congress to increase pay for Federal judges, calling the current situation a "constitutional crisis."

In an eight-page report dedicated entirely to the pay issue, Mr. Roberts noted that the 679 full-time U.S. District Court Judges are paid $165,200 annually, which is roughly half of what university deans and senior law professors earn at major schools. In 1969, Federal District Judges made 21 percent more than the dean of a top law school and 43 percent more than senior law professors.