Connecticut’s chief justice wants to give $45,000 in raises to state judges, a move she says is needed because the judges have gone five years without a salary increase and because they are underpaid compared to judges in other states.
Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers proposed the increases over four years in a report to the state’s Commission on Judicial Compensation. The commission is expected to make a recommendation on her request in January. The legislature could vote on the proposal next year.
Under her recommendation, a superior court judge’s salary would increase from an average of about $147,000 annually to about $192,000, according to a report by television station WTNH. A national court organization ranks Connecticut 45th in the country for judges' pay, the report says.
Under her plan Connecticut Supreme Court judges would see their pay increase about $49,000 each over four years, from about $163,000 to about $212,000, according to The Day of New London.
The judicial pay raise plan, coming on the heels of more than $260,000 in controversial salary hikes that were given, and later suspended, to top officials in the state’s Department of Higher Education last week, is already drawing fire.
"Judges probably deserve a pay raise. But there are people everywhere, both in the private and public sector, who deserve pay raises but do not earn as much as judges," State Rep. Chris Wright, D-Bristol, told The Day.
