Judges get around pay inequity by serving on library commissions

The outrage poured in after this past Monday’s column. Oh, they weren’t so upset that Family Court Judge Sandra Pomrenze was running for a new department in Family Court for political convenience. They were outraged some judges and Supreme Court justices are paid to sit on library commissions as a way to guarantee all are paid the same salary.

I wasn’t upset, perhaps because I’ve known about this ploy since it first passed the Legislature in 2001. (I’m a big believer of equal pay for equal work, especially since I suspected early in my career that single female reporters with cats were not paid as much as married male reporters with kids, despite doing the same job.)

The Nevada Constitution says, when raises are approved by the Legislature, state elected officials and state judges can’t get them until after they’ve been elected to a new term. Nevada’s founding fathers apparently suspected legislators would approve fat raises to enrich themselves, but judges don’t vote on their own raises.

Nevada is the only state in which judges can’t get raises in the middle of their terms, said Supreme Court spokesman Bill Gang. (The prohibition doesn’t extend to municipal judges, who all get raises at the same time.)

Since District Court judges and Supreme Court justices serve terms of six years, what happens is that new judges are paid more than their more experienced peers.

District Court judges will see their $130,000 a year salary increase to $160,000 starting July 1, and justice salaries jump from $140,000 to $170,000.

It’s a pay inequity for sure. In the late 1990s, some judges were making $42,000 less than their peers. So in 2001 the Legislature finagled a way so justices and judges would get extra pay for serving on two library commissions.

The commissions were extended by the 2007 Legislature so justices still making $140,000 will receive $30,000 for serving on the Supreme Court Commission on Law Libraries. Judges making $130,000 will get $30,000 for serving on the District Court Commission on Law Libraries.

If you tally the five Supreme Court and eight Family Court judges statewide who will serve on the commissions, it’s a total of $1.5 million for the two-year general fund budget. Everyone was paid the same but certain judges end up doing some extra work for the money.

The library commissions meet jointly each quarter and are required to file an annual report with the Court Administrator’s office.

Family Court Judge Art Ritchie, who advocated for the bill in 2007, said, “The work of the judges on these commissions is not just a facade to achieve pay equity. These judges have been surveying the law libraries and amended the Supreme Court’s role allowing and expanding the ability of law libraries and staff to provide assistance to self-represented litigants.”

Minutes of the hearings on the bill extending the two library commissions included this exchange between state Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and state Senate Finance Chairman Bill Raggio, R-Reno:

“Why not change the constitution rather than circumventing the intent of the law by establishing these commissions?” Titus asked.

Raggio’s reply: “We at the Legislature have tried to change the constitution to get paid for every day we work, and the voters have rejected that change.”

The public won’t change the Nevada Constitution for this purpose, so lawmakers play this game as a matter of fairness.

The game goes away for the Family Court judges when they’re all on the same election cycle after the 2014 elections. Since the constitution requires staggering Supreme Court justice terms so they don’t all leave at the same time, that library commission is likely to continue.

After my column ran, one attorney was upset because the library commissions show “how elected officials take care of themselves and could care less about the rules. … This is so offensive. We have big state budget problems, and the judges have figured a way to get around the state constitution.”

Sure, it’s an end run around the state constitution. Sure, they knew the salary when they ran for the job. But as a practical matter, I certainly wouldn’t want to be paid $30,000 a year less for the same job.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.