On The Money: Protest Over $1 Million Pay Hike
There's a growing protest over a proposed $1,000,000 pay hike on tap for a government agency you've probably never heard of. Speaking out the loudest are active judges, voicing their concerns from the bench in exclusive interviews with CBS 13.
California courts are in trouble, cutting back staff and reducing pay to make ends meet. Some courts even had to close one day a month. But tomorrow, retiring Supreme Court Justice Ronald George is expected to approve a 3.5% pay hike, worth over one million dollars, for most of the 1,000 employees of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).
On The Money: Protest Over $1 Million Pay Hike
In exclusive interviews with CBS 13, two current Sacramento Superior Court judges expressed their outrage.
"That's one million, one hundred thirteen thousand dollars that will not be spent to keep court rooms open, "Steve White, the Presiding Judge of the Sacramento Superior Courts told CBS 13.
"This is a governmental agency that if they were to close tomorrow, there wouldn't be a person in the state that would notice," said Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne Gilliard.
Judge Steve White told CBS 13 that AOC staffers are already well paid.
"One-third of them make over $100 thousand dollars," White said. "Some of them make upwards of two-hundred thousand. Many of them got big raises in the last year in the last 2 years, while the rest of the state has suffered an enormous recession."
The Administrative Office of the Courts is based in San Francisco, where a key committee will make a formal recommendation on Friday for the pay hike, calling it necessary to remain competitive.
"It is inappropriate. It is wrong to grant pay raises when we cannot even keep the doors of our court houses open," Judge Maryanne Gilliard told CBS 13.
The pay hike has now become a political issue.
The Judge chairing that committee recommending the pay hike, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, in on the ballot herself this Tuesday, seeking voter approval to become the next Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.
