An Idaho justice is retiring over low pay. Here’s how much salaries have lagged

This month, Idaho Supreme Court Justice John Stegner announced he’s retiring from the bench, forgoing the remaining three years in his term. His reason: low pay for difficult work.

Stegner, 69, has served on the state’s highest court since 2018 and as an Idaho judge since 1997. Discouraged by pay disparities between judges and attorneys, coupled with an increasingly fraught political environment for the American judicial system, Stegner decided he’ll seek more lucrative and less taxing employment in the private sector.

“My fear is that making the job more difficult, which I think society is doing in its own way, and not increasing the salaries for judges sends a poor message,” Stegner told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “We don’t value what judges do, and it’s a very challenging job.”

Idaho ranks near the bottom in judicial salaries compared with other states, and judicial vacancies are attracting fewer applicants against stiff competition with high-paying private firms. After Idaho judges were the only state employees who didn’t receive raises last year, the Idaho Legislature approved raises this year. But pay is still lagging behind inflation.

Attorneys deterred by low salaries

Stegner told the Statesman that an attorney with his experience could earn between $300 and $400 per hour in the private sector. An Idaho Supreme Court justice next fiscal year will receive a salary of a little over $165,000, or about $80 per hour based on a 40-hour week. Stegner said justices typically log 60-hour weeks, which would amount to roughly $53 an hour.

Justices in recent years have said judicial applicants are declining, particularly for positions in Idaho’s seven judicial district courts, which handle felony cases, appeals and high-dollar civil cases.

The Supreme Court last year surveyed 1,611 members of the Idaho State Bar, seeking answers on the decline in interest for judicial positions. Most respondents said they’re interested in becoming a judge, but just two in 10 said they’ve previously applied for an opening.

The most common concerns about becoming a judge involved political polarization and the selection process itself, which involves local or statewide selection committees, depending on the judicial level.

Inadequate compensation was among the most common and most significant concerns about judicial positions listed by respondents. Some respondents said they’d take pay cuts up to 50% by becoming a judge.

Among experienced attorneys (21 to 30 years’ membership with the Idaho State Bar), half said they make more than $130,000 annually, according to the report. About one-in-three said they make more than $175,000, and 10% said they make more than $300,000 per year.

Out of 55 U.S. states and territories, Idaho last year ranked 48th for district court judge salaries, and 39th when salaries were adjusted for cost-of-living, according to a study by the National Center for State Courts.

Idaho’s 1st Judicial District Judge Rich Christensen told the Statesman that most judges have a “servant’s heart” and they don’t do the job to get rich. “It’s a calling, it’s not just a way to make a living,” he said by phone.

Christensen said that when he moved to Idaho in 1979 for law school, one could accept a lesser salary because the cost of living was cheap.

“That’s no longer the case,” Christensen told the Statesman by phone.

In Kootenai County, where Christensen lives, the median listing home price has surpassed $560,000, more than $100,000 higher than Spokane County across the border in Washington. Idaho district court judges last year earned about $50,000 less than Washington judges doing the same jobs, according to the National Center for State Courts Study.

District judges, as well as appeals court and Supreme Court justices, also face contested elections, Christensen noted. Magistrate judges — who handle misdemeanor, traffic, divorce and other cases — are appointed and can be removed by voters. But the higher court judges can be challenged in an election every four to six years.

“I think that that weighs heavily on qualified attorneys that wish to become judges,” Christensen said. “I’ll be making less money and stand the chance that I’ve given up my practice and I got to run for election and risk losing the seat.”

Judicial salaries lag behind inflation

From 2018 to 2022, inflation was 19%, while judicial raises lagged at 10%, according to a limited-scope study of judicial salaries by the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations, a nonpartisan research group.

Those numbers soon will improve next year, after lawmakers OK’d raises. The pay increases are coming after judges last year were the only class of state employees that did not receive wage hikes. Lawmakers last year tied the judicial raises to a controversial bill that would have changed the makeup of the Idaho Judicial Council, a board that vets judges for gubernatorial appointment. Gov. Brad Little vetoed the legislation.

“They were punished for something over which they had no control,” House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, told the Statesman by phone.

Rubel, and others, have speculated that the move was punitive in response to the Idaho Supreme Court’s decision in 2021 to strike down a law that made it more difficult for voters to qualify ballot initiatives.

“Sure enough, the Legislature came in the next session and effectively ensured that there were no raises for the Supreme Court,” she said.

Next fiscal year, which starts July 1, Idaho Supreme Court justices will earn $165,212, a 3% boost. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, the new salary has the same buying power today as $137,015 did in 2018. That year, justices earned $146,700.

That means justices have taken a nearly $10,000 pay cut over six years when accounting for inflation.

The lower courts’ salaries are indexed to the Supreme Court’s by a dollar amount, as opposed to a percentage, which means they see slightly better gains with raises. For example, appeals court judges earn $6,000 less than justices on the Supreme Court, so a 3% raise for the upper court translates into a higher percentage gain — 4.7% this year — for the lower court.

Since 2018, appeals and district court salaries have still lagged about $7,000 or $8,000 in terms of buying power. Magistrate salaries, however, have kept pace with inflation, helped by an 8.2% boost that was approved this year.

But the lift for the lower court salaries presents compression issues. When there’s little separation in pay between jobs that require more responsibility, there’s less incentive to move up.

Magistrate court positions typically see 10 to 15 applicants, Stegner said, while district court jobs attract five or fewer. Next year, magistrate judges will make $8,000 less than district court judges, a change from the former $12,000 differential.

“I think decreasing the pay differential is making it more difficult to attract lawyers to the district court bench,” Stegner said. “I’d like to see more aspirants and more applicants for the district court bench than we’re seeing.”