Despite Spitzer Stance
Judicial Raises Still Tied to Lawmakers'

By REUVEN BLAU

The State Senate April 27 unanimously backed legislation to increase judicial pay and legislators' salaries.

JUDITH S. KAYE: Caught between warring parties.

Sources indicated last week that the State Assembly was gearing up to introduce a similar bill, which would suggest the State Legislature would have more than enough votes to override a possible veto from Governor Spitzer, who is opposed to increasing pay for lawmakers.

Chief Judge Upset

Mr. Spitzer's first budget agreement with the State Legislature didn't include the $111 million he proposed in January for judicial raises, which "devastated" Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye.

The state's 1,300 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, and has now threatened to sue.

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 unless the lawmakers agree to several reforms.

GOVERNOR SPITZER: Judges, si; legislators, no.

Under the Senate's proposal, the raises for lawmakers would not kick in until the next legislative term in 2008, as they are barred by state law from raising their own pay.

Mr. Spitzer last week proposed sweeping court reforms to streamline the court system and overhaul the judicial selection process. The broad measures, which require amending the State Constitution, also call for raising judicial salaries, but not for those lawmakers.

The Governor is against increasing legislators' pay until they pass several reforms, including a measure restricting the outside work they could do to prevent conflicts of interest, reforming campaign finance laws, and establishing an independent commission to draw district lines following the next Census.

Spitzer Wants Reforms

But Mr. Spitzer's expansive reform plan appears to have sparse legislative support, because it does not include raises for lawmakers.

That bill is similar to the prior measure introduced by the Assembly, which was patterned after Ms. Kaye's suggestions. The Senate's proposal, which must be reintroduced by the Assembly, is structured to avoid the same political problems that torpedoed raises for state judges over the past several years, and it is designed to place their pay on par with the salaries of U.S. District Court Judges.

Under the Senate's plan, a bipartisan panel would convene after each gubernatorial election to set salaries for the next four years for all three branches of government. The proposed Quadrennial Commission on Executive, Legislative and Judicial Compensation would be comprised of 13 unpaid appointees, mainly from outside government.

Factors to Be Weighed

To determine appropriate raises, the panel would examine cost-of-living increases, pay hikes given to similar Federal positions, recent local union wage contracts, and private-sector salaries. The commission's proposed pay boosts would take effect immediately, but the Governor would have the ability to modify or reject the recommended increases.

The Senate proposal allocates $48.2 million for judicial salary raises. The introduced measure would also provide a permanent salary-hike mechanism for lawmakers, without the usual political fallout that they face when they vote to boost their own pay. It would also end the unseemly practice of having judges lobby the Legislature for reasonable compensation.

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. The Governor has noted that the cost of living has increased by more than 20 percent since state judges last received a raise.

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.

Feds Need Raise, Too

The Senate legislation would award a comparable hike, but would be retroactive only to the start of this year. As for legislators' pay, they currently receive $79,500 a year in base pay, which is reportedly the third highest in the nation, behind only California and Michigan.

The judicial salary issue has also become a dilemma 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.