Presses for Raises
Kaye: Report Cites Judges' Pay Plight

By REUVEN BLAU

New York Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye May 29 continued to press the State Legislature to increase judicial pay following the release of a report that showed local judges earn less than many public-sector employees.

JUDITH S. KAYE: Address 'crisis' now.

The report, issued by the National Center for State Courts, also found that many of the state's 1,300 judges are going into debt. They have not received a pay hike or a cost-of-living adjustment in eight years.

117 Took Pension Loans

According to the 52-page report, there are 117 judges - roughly 10 percent of the entire judiciary - who have unpaid pension loans. "Prior to 2005, it was rare for judges to borrow against their state pensions," the document said. "Only 28 judges had outstanding pension loans at the end of 2004. That number doubled within a year, and has more than quadrupled in two years."

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" Judge Kaye. She has been lobbying the State Legislature for the past several years to boost salaries for local judges, and has now threatened to sue.

MICHAEL A. CARDOZO: Chides legislators, Spitzer.

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 lawmakers' salaries unless they agree to several reforms.

Since the budget was passed, the issue has been raised several times, but the State Senate and Assembly have failed to compromise on a new proposal.

Last week, Ms. Kaye held a news conference at the State Bar Association's headquarters highlighting the report, which she had requested. The report said that judicial salaries in New York rank 48th in the nation when adjusted for the state's high cost of living.

Cardozo: A Scandal

Ms. Kaye was joined by other legal officials, including Michael A. Cardozo, the head of the city's Corporation Counsel, who called the situation a "scandal." He added, "I say this: legislators, stop fooling around with judicial salaries. Governor Spitzer, stop fooling around with judicial salaries. Enact the judicial salary increase and enact it now."

Mr. Spitzer has proposed sweeping 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.

The Governor is against increasing legislators' pay until they pass bills restricting the outside work they can do to prevent conflicts of interest, reforming campaign finance laws, and establishing an independent commission to draw district lines following the next U.S. Census in 2010.

Ms. Kaye has proposed a plan structured to avoid the same political problems that torpedoed raises for state judges over the past several years, and it is designed to place judicial pay on par with the salaries of U.S. District Court Judges.

Under that 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.

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.

"After a careful examination of our current system, and its persistent failure to provide judges with fair and competitive compensation, the Nation Center strongly supports our proposal to create a permanent nonpartisan commission to regularly review and adjust judicial pay," Ms. Kaye said. "The depth of the Center's study of New York's judicial pay freeze and its recommendations for systematic reform offer an independent assessment of the gravity of the judicial pay crisis."