ALBANY — A state panel has recommended phasing in a 27 percent pay hike for state judges over the next three years, which would give jurists their first salary increase in more than 12 years.
Under the state Special Commission on Judicial Pay’s plan, which will formally be released today, state Supreme Court judges would have their annual pay bumped up to $160,000 in April 2012, with $7,000 raises to follow in each of the following two years.
That salary would put them in line in 2014 with federal district court judges, who make $174,000 annually. State Supreme Court judges currently earn $136,700.
Other judges in the state courts system, such as county court judges, whose salaries range from $119,800 to $136,700, would see their salaries rise by the same percentage over the three years.
The commission approved the proposal by a 4-3 vote in a meeting in New York City. The recommendations will be law unless the state Legislature and governor decide to overturn the raises before April 1, when the new salaries would take effect.
Robert Megna, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget director, had urged the commission to use caution, saying that issuing a raise of 40 percent or more — as some judicial groups had been calling for — could throw the state’s precarious finances “out of whack.”
Read the comment section, this is NOT popular, even amoung the left.
Seeing the amount of coruption in NY COurts, here is a good reading spot too: http://exposecorruptcourts.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-new-york-judges-leave-bench.html
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