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With just hours to go before their law-making session ends, legislators have agreed to nearly all facets of state spending for the next fiscal year except one — how much to pay Louisiana judges.
Negotiations will take place Monday to determine compensation for district courts judges, state appellate courts judges and Louisiana Supreme Court justices. Perhaps a bigger sticking point than the dollar amounts is a contentious study to evaluate judges’ workloads.
Senators stripped a requirement from the judiciary expense bill that a workpoint study be completed before any judge receives a pay raise. Advocates for the study have said it’s needed to determine whether courts have too few or too many judges.
A conference committee, comprising three House and three Senate members, will meet Monday to hammer out a compromise. Sen. Jimmy Harris, D-New Orleans, who will be part of the negotiations, said a workpoint study is a non-starter. He and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, who’s also part of the conference committee, said they support making the pay hike a single-year stipend rather than a permanent increase.
“They’re selling it as a one-time payment, but that’s not true. That’s being disingenuous,” said Rep. Jerome “Zee” Zeringue, R-Houma, who is also on the conference committee and has been the most prominent voice in support of the workpoint study.
The Louisiana Constitution won’t allow state lawmakers to take away a pay increase once it’s been approved, Zeringue said, citing Article V, Section 21. “The term of office, retirement benefits, and compensation of a judge shall not be decreased during the term for which he is elected,” the section reads.
In an interview, Zeringue speculated the push from judges for a raise comes before several will retire, resulting in a corresponding bump in their pensions. The House voted unanimously April 25 to approve the judiciary appropriations bill without a raise and with a workpoint study requirement if any increases were added on the Senate side.
The Senate Finance Committee did so through an amendment, boosting Supreme Court justice pay $15,280, adding $17,680 to appellate court judges’ salaries and increasing district court judges’ pay another $14,691. Parish and city court judges were also given an 8.45% raise.
As of mid-2023, judges’ pay across all Louisiana courts averaged out to $170,629, according to the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana.
The report showed district court judges in Louisiana made $5,000 less than the national average and ranked 26th in the country for compensation. When their salaries are adjusted for cost of living, their ranking jumped to 17th nationally. Average pay for appellate court judges and Louisiana Supreme Court justices also fell in the middle of the pack.
These calculations were made before all judges received a 2.5% increase on July 1, 2023, the last of five such increases the Legislature approved in 2019.
Zeringue has consistently called for a workpoint study because he said there are some districts where judges and their staff are spread thin while others haven’t been properly downsized to account for population shifts and the corresponding smaller caseload.
“In some districts, they have judges who are just busting their butts working and have caseloads that are ridiculous, and you have some that don’t,” he said.
Attempts to reach the Louisiana District Judges Association and its president 10th Judicial District Judge Lala Sylvester for comment by phone and email were unsuccessful.
The workpoint study was authorized by a lawmaker-created task force on which Zeringue sits. He and its members agreed to have the Legislature cover the cost of conducting the study. They also went along with judges’ wishes to have the National Center for State Courts conduct it after they objected to the task force’s chosen administrator.
Zeringue authored a House concurrent resolution to keep the task force active, but it has floundered without advancing to the Senate. That means it’s all but dead for the session, as lawmakers must conclude their business by 6 p.m. Monday.
Julie O’Donoghue contributed to this report. This is a developing story that will be updated.
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