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Under the legislation, pay for district attorneys and assistant district attorneys would increase by a similar percentage.
The pay raises for judges would come from a $40 increase on court filings, such as for filing a lawsuit or for other civil activity in chancery and circuit courts, and a $100 increase for filings with the appellate courts. The money for the raise for prosecutors would be obtained by increasing the assessments on many fines, such as for traffic violations, game and fish violations and for other crimes by $10. Chancery and circuit judges currently earn $104,170 per year, compared to the Southeastern average of $138,901. Under the bill, the trial judges' pay would increase to $112,127 on Jan. 1, 2013, and would top out at $136,000 in January 2016.
The chief justice would earn $159,000 by 2016. The pay for other appellate judges would be between that of trial judges and the chief justice.
The pay of district attorneys would increase from its current $95,796 to $104,322 in 2013 to $125,900 in 2016.
bobby.harrison@journalinc.com