Commission recommends raises for state’s judges
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The New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation tentatively proposed on Monday giving the state’s judges a 10 percent raise. Screenshot via The New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation
By Jacob Kaye
The independent commission charged with determining salaries for the state’s lawmakers, governor, agency heads and judiciary unanimously agreed to a draft proposal Monday that would see the pay of some of the state’s judges increase by over 10 percent.
The New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation, which is led by former Court of Appeals Judge Eugene Fahey, said during their Monday meeting that they’d soon be recommending to increase the salaries of state Supreme Court judges by 10.2 percent, putting their salaries on par with those paid to federal judges.
Most judges in the state’s lower courts, including judges in Family Court and city Civil and Criminal Courts who currently are paid a percentage of the Supreme Court judicial salary, would also see their pay increase but only as a function of the salary boost for Supreme Court judges. The only exception would come in the city’s Housing Courts, where judges who are currently paid 90 percent of what Supreme Court judges make, would see their pay percentage rise to 93 percent.
The salary increase mostly matches the request made to the commission by Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas, who testified before the commission last month and called for a 10 percent raise for Supreme Court judges. At the heart of his request was that state judges receive pay parity with federal judges.
The recommendation proposed by the commission on Monday does just that.
In a statement to the Eagle, Office of Court Administration spokesperson Al Baker, celebrated the commission’s recommendation.
“The Unified Court System is grateful for the thoughtful, efficient work of the Commission on Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Compensation, under the leadership of Judge Eugene Fahey,” Baker said. “As we have said throughout this process, competitive compensation is essential to attracting the best and brightest of the legal profession to the judiciary, retaining experienced judges on the bench, and ensuring the independence and integrity of New York’s judicial branch.”
“We are gratified that under today’s recommendation by the Commission, New York’s Supreme Court Justices next year would receive the same salaries as are currently received by Federal District Court Judges, and the salaries of all of our other judges will be calculated based on that benchmark,” he added. “Pay parity with the federal judiciary sends a strong signal that the work of New York’s judges is valued and respected.”
The tentative agreement would see state Supreme Court judges’ pay increase to $232,600. Though not retroactive pay, the increase reflects the fact that the state’s judges will have gone five years without a pay increase by the time the proposed increase is set to go into effect next year.
Under the proposal, judges will also see a 2 percent salary increase in fiscal year 2026. They will not see an increase in either fiscal year 2025 or 2027, the year a new version of the commission is set to meet again.
With the exception of Housing Court judges, all other lower court judges would see the percentage of their pay in relation to Supreme Court judges remain the same.
At least one commissioner – former Queens State Senator and former Administrative Judge of both Queens’ Criminal and Civil Supreme Courts Jeremy Weinstein – urged the commission to increase those percentages.
“I would raise them to the same level as the Supreme Court, but I know that's not going to happen,” Weinstein said. “I think at the very least, we should consider raising them to the 95 percent level so that the gap between the two courts does not continue to grow.”
Though the commission unanimously agreed to the proposal on Monday, nothing has been set in stone.
Fahey said on Monday that he will formally present the group’s six other commissioners with a final draft proposal just before the end of November. Once finalized, the proposal will be sent to the governor, the chief judge and the leadership of the state legislature the following week.
Should the legislature and governor take no action on the proposal, it will pass into law, going into effect April 2024. However, both the state’s top executive and legislatures – whose salaries will be determined by the same commission next year – also have the power to amend or reject the commission’s proposal.
Though the commission has yet to have its recommendations rejected by the legislature during its short history, raises for judges have been hard to come by.
Created in 2011, the seven-member commission was put in place at a time when judges had not seen a raise in a dozen years – during that same period, federal judges saw their pay steadily increase.
It wasn’t until 2015 that the commission – which meets every four years – convened and recommended incremental salary increases for New York State judges, which was paid out over the following four years.
State Supreme Court judges would see their salary increase by a little more than 10 percent under a new proposal from the New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation. Eagle file photo by Walter Karling
In 2019, the final year judges saw the 2015 raise take effect, the commission recommended against increasing the pay of the state’s judges, citing budget concerns.
Following the commission’s determination in 2019, top court officials at the time lobbied then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to reconvene the commission, which he did, ordering them to again meet in 2020.
However, budget concerns remained the following year, and were in fact made worse by the pandemic. Judges were poised to go at least the next four years without a pay increase.
Should the legislature reject the commission’s proposal, judges will likely have to go eight years without a pay boost.
And just like 2019 and 2020, budget concerns remain.
During the commission’s first hearing in mid-October, Blake Washington, the director of the Division of Budget, laid out a dire budgetary situation, which he said includes a budget deficit of around $10 billion in the coming year.
“These gaps have to be addressed by prudent management by all state agencies, and OCA, as well,” Washington said.
The proposal is expected to cost around $35 million the first year the pay raises go into effect, and $4.6 million for each of the following years a pay raise is in effect, according to OCA.
