No pay raise for judges in high court’s budget request

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Despite recent calls for an increase in pay for state judges, the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently submitted a budget request with no requests for additional money for the coming biennium.

Instead, the court is asking for enough money for the 2017-2019 biennium to continue operations and for a technical change that would simplify its financial reporting. It has no fiscal effect and does not change the court’s authority to collect or spend money, according to a letter from Director of State Courts Denis Moran that accompanied the request.

Chief Justice Pat Roggensack had said at her first State of the Judiciary Address in November that increasing judicial salaries would be a priority.

Roggensack said Tuesday that the budget request is just the first step in the process, and increasing judicial salaries remains a priority for her and the court.

“We are working on it in a number of different ways,” she said.

However, Roggensack declined to describe what those alternatives might be, saying it was too early to disclose them.

Increasing judicial salaries has been a goal of the Supreme Court’s for years. In the state’s 2011-2013 budget, then Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson had asked for the creation of a commission to review judicial salaries every two years. The proposal would have set pay increases based on either the commission’s recommendations or the general wage increases given to state employees, whichever one was higher.

Despite wide support for the higher pay, Gov. Scott Walker did not include the request in his draft version of the state’s budget. When the Legislature later added its own provision that would have created such a commission, the governor responded with a veto.

The Supreme Court made a similar attempt in the state’s current budget but proposed setting judicial salaries set at a level comparable to those paid in surrounding Midwestern states.

Appellate judges in Wisconsin earned $139,059 in 2014. Their counterparts in Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota, meanwhile, make $162,511 on average, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. But bringing Wisconsin into line with nearby states would cost would $6.7 million.

Walker modified the request, but it was rejected by the state’s powerful Joint Finance Committee, which deals with matters relating to the budget.

Supporters of a pay increase for state judges have said that the lack of competitive salaries deters people from running for the offices. Follow @erikastrebel