The Highest Paid Judges in Rhode Island

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Stephen Beale, GoLocalProv News Contributor

The highest-earning judges in Rhode Island sit on the state’s highest court, with Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Suttell commanding the highest compensation at $234,915 for the current fiscal year, state payroll records show.

Most of the 30 highest-earning state judges earn between $165,000 and nearly $200,000 annually, with benefits adding about another $15,000 to their compensation. The list includes almost all Supreme Court justices and many of those on Superior Court as well as some justices and magistrates from courts that handle family issues, workers compensation, and traffic-related matters. (See the below slides for the complete list.)

Rhode Island judges are among the highest paid judges in the country. The justices on the Supreme Court are the 14th most compensated in the nation while those on Superior Court rank 13th, according to the January 2013 national survey of judicial salaries published by the National Center for State Courts. Superior Court justices in this state drop to the 33nd spot when cost of living is taken into account, yet they remain the highest paid among the six New England states, the survey shows.

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Flanders: judicial pay is lower than it should be

Yet many in the legal profession argue that, as a general rule, judges do not earn enough.

“Generally, judicial salaries are lower than they should be to attract the best and the brightest,” said Bob Flanders, a former associate justice of the state Supreme Court who is now an attorney with Hinckley Allen. Flanders said salaries cannot be so prohibitively low that they cannot attract legal professionals whose earnings at a private law firm could be many times that of their salaries as judges.

State Rep and former state prosecutor Bob Craven agreed with Flanders’ assessment of judicial salaries. Most judges he has personally known had to take a pay cut as they exited private practice, he said. “If you’re making $300,000 less … that’s a sacrifice,” said Craven, D-Narragansett.

Craven said he came to appreciate just how dramatic the pay disparity is during an exchange with a Superior Court judge when he was a prosecutor in the 1980s. Craven recalled that he had raised an objection over the admissibility of evidence and the judge had ruled against him. When Craven said he disagreed with the decision, the judge responded, “What do you expect for $56,500 a year, Felix Frankfurter?” (Frankfurter served on the U.S. Supreme Court in the mid-twentieth century.)

The judge, whom he declined to name, has long since retired, Craven said.

But pay has become such an issue that the legal profession has seen a national trend of judges leaving the bench, according to Flanders.

Flanders himself said low pay was one factor—among many—that led him to leave the state’s highest court in 2004, after serving for eight and a half years. Flanders said that when he had first joined the court, his pay was a fifth of what it had been in the private sector. “That’s a hard pillow to swallow,” Flanders said. For judges who face college tuition bills for their children and other major expenses it’s too much, according to Flanders.

(Flanders noted that his decision was motivated by other factors as well, such as frustrations over being a frequent dissenter in cases and a desire to do other forms of public service, which he later did as state education board chair and the Central Falls receiver.)

Flanders said the pay for judges also should reflect the importance of their job. “The function they perform is so important to society,” Flanders said. Judges set sentences for criminal offenders. They interpret the constitution and statutes. And they decide disputes that arise over private contracts. “And their word is final,” he added.

“A judge plays an incredibly important role and affects people’s lives in ways that perhaps no other public official does,” Flanders said.

Rhode Island v. Massachusetts

The difference between pay for judges in New England is significant. In Massachusetts, a typical Superior Court justice earned $129,694 as of January 2013, ranking 49th in the nation overall when cost of living was factored in. A Rhode Island Superior Court justice, on the other hand, was earning about 15 percent more—or $149,207—at the same time, ranking 33nd nationally with cost of living factored in, according to the National Center for State Courts.

But Rhode Island justices are not earning too much, according to a spokesman for the state judiciary. Instead, he said their Massachusetts colleagues have been earning too little.

“A 2008 Massachusetts Compensation Review Panel to the Massachusetts Legislature found that the existing judicial salary levels in Massachusetts were woefully low for the region. Just last year the legislature there increased the salary level of their Supreme Judicial Court justices and Trial Court judges by $30,000 annually,” said the spokesman, Craig Berke.

Those raises have yet to kick in in any national rankings. The first installment of $15,000 will be made on January 1, 2014. The next will come six month later, according to Berke.

The disparity in pay has made a difference on the bench, according to Craven. He said the salaries in Massachusetts draw judges who have been prosecutors, public defenders, lawmakers, and others from the public sector. The higher salaries in Rhode Island, he said, result in a more diverse pool of judicial applicants, attracting some from the private sector. An example is Supreme Court justice William Robinson, a former partner at Edwards & Angell, who ranks as the 16th highest paid justice in the state.

“The Judiciary now, and the General Assembly before separation of powers in 2004, decided on behalf of our citizens that the state wants to attract well-qualified, experienced candidates to the bench. If we want educated, experienced, responsible jurists making decisions that can have enormous impact on people’s lives, we need to compensate them fairly and make it worthwhile to leave what for some was a lucrative law practice,” Berke said. (He noted that salaries are set by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, in accordance with Rhode Island General Laws 8-15-4.)

“When looking at compensation for judges, you also need to put the profession in perspective. Our judges, on average, are about 47 years old and have been practicing law for about 20 years when they come on the bench. The average age of the three newest judges this year is 59.7,” Berke added.

Taxpayers group says judicial salaries too high

Berke said cost of living is a “significant” factor when comparing judicial compensation across the nation, noting that Rhode Island Superior Court justices rank 33nd when that factor is figured into the rankings. Even in New England, he said the disparities in cost of living make fair comparisons difficult. The fairest comparisons, he said, would be with Connecticut and Massachusetts. (Rhode Island justices still rank higher than their peers in both states.)

But a spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Taxpayers cautioned against focusing too much on differences in cost of living.

“Is it entirely valid, however, to ‘discount,’ or lower, the national ranking of Rhode Island judges’ pay by factoring in the cost of living? Taxpayers face the same cost of living expenses. At the same time, their fiscal position is exacerbated by having to contend with the sixth highest public-private pay gap in the country,” said Monique Chartier, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Taxpayers. (She noted that Rhode Island state employees overall rank as the fifth highest paid, according to this report.)

She said other factors should be considered when determining the pay for judges. She asked whether it might be “more prudent and equitable” to consider how much compensation can be supported by local private-sector incomes.

“Stated more baldly, affordability must be taken into account when setting public sector compensation. It is not at all clear that our elected officials have done so, as reflected by state and local budgets that seem too often to be in the red and public pay rankings … near the top of the national scale,” Chartier said.

Judicial benefits raise union ire

In recent years, judicial benefits, rather than salaries, have stirred controversy. At one time, judges were eligible to receive 100 percent of their final pay in retirement (at least a handful of older judges were still due for full pension in late 2011). In the past, some judges did not have to contribute to their pensions either. Craven and Berke said the pension benefits have historically been offered to offset the lower salaries judges earn.

“In the past decade, that benefit package has been significantly reduced by the legislature,” Berke said.

New judges can no longer hope to earn pensions that equal their final pay, but many union leaders were outraged when judges, along with state troopers and public safety workers, were exempted from the brunt of the pension reform law that was passed in 2011.

“I have a problem with them and other people being carved out of the alleged pension reform,” said Phil Keefe, president of SEIU Local 580. “When they treat those people differently than my people I think it’s discriminatory and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

The pension reform law exempted judges from having to participate in the new hybrid plan that combines elements of the traditional pension with 401(k)-style retirement accounts. It also instituted a different method for calculating when cost of living adjustments are returned to judges.

Keefe added that he did not necessarily believe that judicial compensation is too high—or too low. Instead, the issue is one of fairness. “We are all state employees. We should all be treated the same,” Keefe said.

The pension reform law also increased the amount judges contribute towards their pensions, from 8.75 percent to 12 percent. “We are not aware of any other state whose judges pay a higher contribution rate. Other state employees, by contrast, contribute 8.75 percent,” Berke said.

Judges also pay a co-share towards their health care benefits equal to 25 percent of the premium, according to Berke.

But some union leaders remain convinced that judges are receiving special treatment.

J. Michael Downey, the president of AFSCME Council 94, agreed with Keefe, noting that the labor group is currently negotiating a contract for the state workers it represents, replacing the one that expired last June. He said the state should show the same respect for janitors as it does to judges. “We would certainly hope that the state treats us as nicely as the judges,” Downey said.

Stephen Beale can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @bealenews

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