Judges, elected officials to get pay raises

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri judges, statewide officials and lawmakers soon will be getting a raise after the final chance for lawmakers to reject the pay plan died Monday.

A state salary commission last year called for raises of $1,200 plus 4 percent for judges and elected officials. Under the state constitution, the raises take effect unless two-thirds of the legislature rejects the plan by Wednesday.

The House rejected the plan 118-37 last week, but a Senate committee on Monday declined to send the measure to the Senate for debate. Only one senator on the panel recommended sending the resolution forward.

Senate Majority Leader Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, said committee members, including himself, were reluctant to support an idea in committee that they would oppose on the Senate floor.

Supporters of the pay plan say it's necessary because judicial salaries fall short of what lawyers can earn in private practice, so pools of qualified judicial candidates have dwindled.

Under the salary commission's recommendations, a Supreme Court judge's salary will increase from $123,000 to $129,168 a year in July, the start of the new state budget year. Circuit judges' pay will rise from $108,000 to $113,568.

The plan also gives an additional $2,000 to associate circuit judges to narrow the gap in salary compared with circuit judges. They currently make $12,000 less than circuit judges.

Several other court officials whose salaries are tied to circuit judges' pay, including county prosecutors, also are likely to see pay increases.

Legislators' salary would rise from $31,351 to $33,853 annually, but their higher pay won't kick in until 2009.

The Associated Press calculated the raises will cost about $3.15 million annually, once legislators' increases are included.

The plan also calls for judges and elected officials to receive whatever pay increase other state employees get in the future. Gov. Matt Blunt has called for giving state employees a 3 percent raise in his recommendations for the next budget year.

Critics of the pay raise plan had complained that it lumped elected officials in with judges and said the ballot language deceived voters.

Missourians in November overwhelmingly approved the amendment that set the pay plan process in motion. The ballot language focused on another part of the amendment, to constitutionally prohibit officials convicted of a felony from receiving their state pension.

But it also made it easier to raise the salaries of legislators, other elected officials and judges. The salary commission process already existed, but last year's amendment increased the standard for rejecting the salary plan from a simple majority vote by legislators to a two-thirds vote and removed language that made the recommendations "subject to appropriation."

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House's pay raise rejection proposal is HCR13.