Chief justice: Judicial raises on the way

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Two years after Chief Justice Pat Roggensack made a promise that judicial salaries would be her priority, it appears that she will be coming through.

Roggensack said on Wednesday that raises for state judges will start in June 2018. She noted that the raises will also increase per diems for temporary reserve judges. By statute, per diems are set at 90 percent of the daily salary of a full-time judge.

At the same time, Roggensack warned that her concerns about the state court system’s money are not over, saying that much uncertainty is being sowed in Washington, D.C. In particular, she said the state’s Children Court Improvement Program, is at risk because the federal government has funded only one of three grants that the program relies on for support.

“Therefore, although we hope the federal government will soon address the concerns of children in the courts throughout the United States, unless the federal government moves quickly, we will need to find funds within what the Legislature has allocated to us in order to prevent a temporary loss of those programs,” she said.

Roggensack’s address wasn’t exclusively devoted to concerns about the court system. She tipped her hat to members of the court system who had helped roll out e-filing across the state. She noted that Court Consolidated Automation Programs, which tends to the state courts’ technology needs, finished the first phase of the project two months ahead of schedule.

“My congratulations to Jean Bousquet, her capable and dedicated staff, our faithful clerks of court throughout the state and the patience of judges and their staff – some of whom were reluctant participants, but who have risen to the occasion in true Wisconsin style,” she said.

Now that civil, small-claims, family, paternity, traffic and forfeiture cases must be filed electronically, the next phase will be to add more case types such as guardianships, probate and commitments. Roggensack said that by March 1, 2018, e-filing will be mandatory in probate matters .

Roggensack’s comments were part of her State of the Judiciary Address, which she used to kick off the annual Judicial Conference at the Chula Vista Resort, 2501 River Rd., Wisconsin Dells. The conference is a three-day judicial education event in which judges attend presentations and workshops relating to the judiciary and judicial process.

In her address last year, Roggensack had told the state’s judges that she had met with the governor to call for higher salaries for judges.

She had called on the state’s circuit-court judges to help her by reaching out to local businesses and telling them why it’s important to know that their cases will be handled by experienced, well-trained judges. She had also noted that the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court was able to get a 20 percent increase in judicial salaries in her state by having business officials talk to Gov. John Kasich about the judiciary’s importance.

According to a recent report by the National Center of State Courts, the salaries paid in Wisconsin trial courts are 41st-lowest in the country. Also, the salaries paid to Wisconsin appellate judges are the 33rd lowest paid in the 40 states that have appeals courts.

In her first State of the Judiciary Address, delivered in 2015, Roggensack had said that higher judicial salaries would be a priority. Providing raises has been a goal of the Supreme Court’s for years.

In the state’s 2011-2013 budget, then-Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson had called for a commission to be set up to review judicial salaries every two years. The proposal would have set pay increases in accordance with either the commission’s recommendations or the general-wage increases given to state employees, whichever one was higher. Follow @erikastrebel