The version of the state budget that the Ohio Senate is working on will include raises for judges, county prosecutors and sheriffs across the state.
Senate President Keith Faber, a Republican from Western Ohio, said the final numbers were still being worked out, but in principle, senators have agreed to include the raises.
He expects the plan will be similar to what Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has been pressing for and Gov. John Kasich included in his executive budget proposal for judges.
Kasich’s proposal, which would have given raises to judges from municipal courts up through the Ohio Supreme Court, was stripped out of the budget by fellow Republicans in the House.
That plan, which would have raised judicial pay by 5 percent each year for four years, would have cost about $30 million, O’Connor has said.
She has lobbied for several years for judicial raises. Lawyers often take a pay cut when they are elected to the bench. O’Connor has said the pay rate is making it difficult to encourage high quality candidates to run for the bench.
Pay rates for judges, elected county officers and state officers and legislators are set by statute. Changing them requires approval of the General Assembly. Pay rates for those folks have remained the same since 2008.
Faber, who has promoted changing the Ohio Constitution so a commission of citizens decides pay issues, said Wednesday he thought all three groups — judges, sheriffs and prosecutors — could make a case that they deserve more money.
Click here to read more of this story.
About Marion Online News
