Vol. 6, No.
4 - Fall 2003
Hawaii Judicial
Salary Study Could Set Tone for Others
Not all judicial salary studies
are alike—at least not anymore. In a recent study of judicial salaries in
Hawaii, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) took the unconventional
approach of examining the dynamics of how judicial salaries are determined in
several states, instead of just looking at the various salary-setting
mechanisms.
“This study is different
because previous studies don’t tell how the salaries were actually set,
especially on a national level,” said Bob Tobin, NCSC principal court
management consultant and project director of this study. “This isn’t
a magic bullet, but it’s very helpful.”
So helpful that the National Center
currently is developing a monograph to make this study less Hawaii
specific, which will more readily allow other states to benefit from the
findings.
The study came about in 2002
when the Cades Foundation of Honolulu, working closely with Chief Justice Ronald
T.Y. Moon and then-State Court Administrator Michael Broderick, contracted with
the National Center to study judicial salary-setting mechanisms in other states
to determine how to improve the Hawaii process. Coincidentally, The situation
was brought to light when a new governor came into office at the same time and
began having trouble hiring top people because of low salaries. The governor
recognized the need to change the way salaries were structured for high-ranking
public officials from each branch of government, including the judiciary.
One of the study’s goals was
to help Hawaii and other states remove politics, as much as possible, from
playing a major role in determining judicial salaries. “What happens is when
increases aren’t regular, then those positions might get a big jump at one
time,” Tobin said, “which is politically bad for legislators because it
creates an artificially large-looking jump. Hawaii needed to find a
non-political, regular way to adjust salaries.”
The study found that one way of
achieving this is to establish compensation commissions—either interbranch or
for each branch of government—whose recommendations on salaries and interim
salary escalators will stand unless affirmatively rejected by the legislature. The
Hawaii study was conducted through a series of interviews with court
professionals from 28 states to gather information on their process for setting
judicial salaries. The National Center then analyzed the responses to identify
promising methods that could achieve a workable model for Hawaii. The survey was
carried out with the support of the Conference of State Court Administrators
(COSCA).
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