LITTLE ROCK — The Legislature’s budget committee on Wednesday rejected cost-of-living raises for prosecutors and judges, reflecting the mood among some legislators to cut spending or at least avoid spending increases.
The committee amended the appropriation bill for state elected officials by removing the 1.86 percent raise that was in the bill when the committee initially approved it last week.
The action strips about $475,000 from the bill, which contains about $29.4 million in salaries in fiscal 2012.
“What I’ve heard from the citizens of Arkansas is that they feel this is just not the time for some of our highest-paid state employees to be getting a raise,” said Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow. “We’re going through extremely difficult financial times.”
Rapert also pointed out that no raises were proposed for legislators and so it wouldn’t be “too much to ask” for judges and prosecutors to also forgo a raise.
Sen. Jim Luker, D-Wynne, a lawyer who often works closely with judges and prosecutors on legislation, wondered whether the action was “meaningless political posturing.”
Last week, with little discussion, the committee recommended House Bill 1063 for a vote in the House. It included the raises for judges and prosecutors and provides funding for the core elements of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of state government.
But later some legislators began questioning the raises behind the scenes. The House then referred the bill back to the budget committee at the request of one of the committee’s two co-chairmen.
Rep. Barry Hyde, D-North Little Rock, asked the committee Wednesday to amend HB1063 by removing the raises. He said he was doing it because “constituents voiced concerns” and that removing the raises was “at the request of the judges.”
The 54-member committee overwhelmingly approved Hyde’s motion. Only a few no votes could be heard.
Under the amended version of HB1063, these changes were made, lowering the authorized salaries back to current levels:
Chief justice - $159,782 to $156,864
Associate justice - $147,905 to $145,204
Court of Appeals chief judge - $145,628 to $142,969
Court of Appeals judges - $143,350 to $140,732
Circuit judges - $138,791 to $136,257
District judges - $124,082 to $121,816
Prosecuting attorney, Division A - $121,776 to $119,552
Prosecuting attorney, Division B - $101,898 to $100,037
Division A prosecutors are full-time prosecutors. Division B prosecutors may have a private law practice on the side.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, asked for an explanation of why the judges and prosecutors were recommended for raises in the first place and other elected officials were not.
“I don’t want the public to assume that whoever put this together didn’t just do this arbitrarily,” she said.
Kim Arnall, assistant director for the Bureau of Legislative Research, said that during budget hearings in the fall, legislators voted to recommend judges and prosecutors get the same raises that Gov. Mike Beebe has proposed for nonelected state employees.
Rep. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff, said that some members of the committee felt that if executive branch employees would get raises, then prosecutors and judges should as well.
He said members in the committee in the fall didn’t feel comfortable asking for raises for themselves.
Fall budget hearings are held before the start of a legislative session in January. Legislators on the fall budget committee in many cases are no longer in the Legislature or on the committee subsequently when recommendations from the fall are voted on by the Legislature.
In other cases, legislators may miss some of the fall meetings, so they aren’t aware of all recommendations that were made.
Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, said legislators were to blame for not asking more questions when HB1063 came up in the committee last week.
“I thank my colleagues in the House for sending this back over here,” Hendren said. “In my opinion, we didn’t do our job in this committee. I share the blame for sitting here and not saying anything.”
Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, DCrossett, wanted to know which judges had asked for their proposed raises to be removed.
Hyde said he didn’t know the identity of the person who asked for the raises to be removed. He said he thought it was coming from the Judicial Council, which is the association of state judges.
Jeffress wanted to know whether legislators were stopping raises for judges and prosecutors because they have high salaries.
“If so, what is the cut-off for a high salary?” Jeffress asked. “The Lottery Commission voted to give their director a raise, and he makes an extraordinary salary. If we’re going to be cutting people’s salaries, certainly we ought to go there, too, as well as this. That’s a different day, I suppose.”
Lottery Commission Executive Director Ernie Passailaigue received a raise from $324,000 to $330,480 effective Dec. 26.
Luker asked if “professors at UAMS and college football coaches and others in state government perceived as making extraordinarily high salaries” should also not get raises.
More than 1,000 state employees make more than $100,000 per year, and the University of Arkansas football coach’s pay is in millions, though not all of the money paid to top-paid employees comes from taxes. Others among the highest-paid employees receive some of their pay from other sources of revenue besides tax dollars, such as tuition for college administrators or hospital fees for doctors.
Hyde responded, “We’ll take those as they come. Right now, we’re just addressing this bill.”
Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway, co-chairman of the committee, said the governor’s proposed raise of 1.86 percent for other state employees would cost about $23 million. He said the committee would decide whether to go along with that later in the session.
Beebe announced in November that his proposed $4.59 billion general-revenue budget for fiscal 2012 includes the raise because state employees “deserve it.”
Raises for most state employees weren’t given for the first half of fiscal 2011, but Beebe announced in December that he was reinstating them at 2 percent. The governor cited good revenue collections to justify his decision.
Beebe makes $86,890 as governor and has said he’s fine with not getting a raise for fiscal 2012.
Others who wouldn’t get raises in HB1063 are the attorney general, the lieutenant governor, the secretary of state, the auditor, the treasurer and the land commissioner.
Rep. Kathy Webb, D-Little Rock, the other budget cochairman, said that lobbyist Bruce Hawkins, who represents the Judicial Council, was the one who approached legislators about dropping the raises for judges. She said she was aware of no one representing prosecutors approached legislators to drop the raises.
Bob McMahan, the director of the Office of Prosecutor Coordinator, said in an interview that he didn’t express an opinion to legislators about the raises.
“If the Legislature decided in these economic times there weren’t sufficient money for the raises, then we’re fine with that decision,” McMahan said.
Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said in an interview that “at least rank-and-file state employees” haven’t been stripped of raises. “The rest of us will live with it and be fine,” he said.
Arkansas Chief Justice Jim Hannah, through a spokesman, said after the committee meeting that the Judicial Council didn’t take a position on the raises.
“The judges live in the same economic environment the rest of the state is enduring right now, so they understand the concerns,” Hannah said. “ I am hopeful that when the economy improves, judges will receive the same cost-of-living increases that are approved for all other state employees.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/20/2011