Iowa Judicial Branch calls for 5 percent pay raise for judges

DES MOINES - Officials in Iowa's Judicial Branch are seeking a 5 percent increase in salaries for judges beginning July 1, arguing a raise is needed to keep pay for judges competitive so the state continues to attract qualified people to leave private law practices to serve on the bench.

Court administrators have filed a bill for consideration in the 2017 legislative session that seeks a $2.262 million state appropriation in fiscal 2018 to provide a pay increase for justices, judges and magistrates that would be the second raise since 2008.

Currently, the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court is paid $178,538 annually while other justices receive yearly salaries of $170,544 as the state's top judges. The proposed legislation seeks to boost those levels to $187,465 and $179,071, respectively, with similar 5 percent increases provided to Iowa Court of Appeals judges, district court and associate judges, magistrates and senior judges in the state's court system.

'The fact is that we've kind of fallen off track with them and need to get them kick-started again,” said State Court Administrator David Boyd. 'We need to get back to regular salary increases like there used to be that tracked along the line of other state employees.”

State budget-makers and Republican Gov. Terry Branstad are wrestling with a projected revenue shortfall topping $100 million for the current fiscal year that ends June 30, but revenue projectors estimate state tax collections should grow by 4.8 percent to about $7.556 billion in the next budget year.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said lawmakers would 'take a serious look at that,” as well as opportunities for the court system to work within the resources they have, noting an electronic upgrade helped create some room within the judicial branch budget.

Branstad is slated to present his two-year budget plan to the new GOP-led Legislature on Jan. 10 and Boyd hopes higher pay for judges is part of that discussion. The proposed pay package is separate from the $8.2 million increase proposed to fund judicial branch operations in all 99 Iowa counties next fiscal year, he noted.

State negotiators have offered unionized state employees a 1 percent across-the-board pay hike for each of the next two fiscal years at the state of collective bargaining talks, but Boyd noted a majority of state workers have seen their base pay increase by at least 13 percent since fiscal 2008 while judges received one 4.5 percent salary boost during that same time frame.

The lag in judicial pay is having an effect, the state court administrator said.

'Our applicant pools in most places around the state continue to be at significantly lower levels than they used to be, especially in terms of the job diversity,” he said. 'We're still able to get at least two good names to the governor. That's the positive.”

In June, judicial branch officials announced Iowa courts would be operating under a hiring freeze 'with minimal exceptions” and sustained judicial vacancies to help cover a fiscal shortfall caused when lawmakers and Branstad approved a status quo $178.7 million budget which was $5.4 million shy of what they said was needed to maintain the current level of services for a system with more than 1,900 employees statewide.

Boyd said this week the judicial branch has 'in excess” of 100 vacant positions, which has placed some clerk of court offices 'under significant stress,” especially in counties with smaller offices. He also said court officials delayed filling up to eight judgeships to stretch state dollars but they may face new challenges if the governor and lawmakers seek further cuts to deal with this year's projected shortfall.

'If a request to cut came, we'd have to have a discussion about all options being on the table,” he said, 'which ones we might eventually recommend to the court, we don't know.

'We're not going to be able to do in (fiscal 2018) what we're doing this year,” he added. 'The longer that people ignore the fact that the cost of doing business does go up, our deficit continues to grow as well.”