Top Ga. Judge: 'Obvious Deficiencies' in Judicial Pay Study
A consultant’s study of the compensation paid to Georgia judges had “obvious deficiencies,” the president of the Council of Superior Court Judges told legislators at a state senate subcommittee hearing today. At issue is a proposed judicial pay increase.
For example, the study, by New York-based employee-benefits consultant Mercer LLC, found that Georgia judges are paid competitively, compared to in-house lawyers with 12 years of experience. But state superior court judges have an average of 32 years of experience, writes Judge Arch W. McGarity in an e-mail to the Daily Report. “Do we receive zero credit for those extra 20 years?”
Presently, according to the study, state superior court judges are paid just over $120,000, but many also get supplemental pay from the county that averages about $35,000. For those judges, the total $155,412-plus average is more than the $138,000 average earned by jurists in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
However, not quite half of the state’s 202 superior court judges are paid less than $155,412, according to McGarity.
