Analysis: Miss. judges see raises with new year
The new year marks the beginning of four years’ of incremental salary increases for Mississippi judges — thanks to Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. for a novel funding method that didn’t raid the treasury.
The judges’ last pay raise was in 2003. The new pay scale approved by the Legislature and Gov. Phil Bryant in 2012 increases salaries in four annual steps, topping out in 2016.
It not only increases salaries for members of the Supreme Court and state Court of Appeals but also for chancery, circuit and county court judges as well as district attorneys and their assistants.
Money for the raises would come from increasing filing fees in civil and appellate courts. Raises for district attorneys and assistant district attorneys would come from fee increases for various felonies and misdemeanors, including speeding and littering.
AP
12/30/12
