Each judge in Louisiana will receive a one-year payment of more than $10,000 next month but thanks to Gov. Jeff Landry won’t have to first participate in a study that could show Louisiana has too many judges in some regions.
Landry used his line-item veto to kill the so-called work point study to determine whether court filings and population shifts over time have left some judges with too little to do.
Legislators had included language in House Bill 781 to make the payment contingent on the study. The bill gives $14,691 to district court judges, $15,280 to Supreme Court justices and $17,680 to judges on the courts of appeal.
A vote by an obscure judicial board appears to allow judges and Supreme Court justices to receive the money in a lump sum payment as soon as July. This would allow them to collect the full amount even if they leave their position within the next year, as at least one Supreme Court justice will be doing.
Legislators have been trying for years to have judges certify how much work they do – to allow lawmakers to determine whether the various courts have the right number of judges.
But most judges have steadfastly resisted participating in the study.
“Judicial study stonewalled,” headlined an August 2023 report by the independent Public Affairs Research Council in Baton Rouge. “Appellate court judges stymie effort to review workload, staffing discrepancies.”
The group reported that case filings throughout Louisiana have fallen by more than 50% over the past 20 years.
At the same time, the population of Louisiana has shifted somewhat from the north to the south.
The report noted that the Legislature had mandated the study in 2022 in a bill sponsored by state Rep. Jerome Zeringue, R-Houma, that created a task force that asked judges to fill out time sheets over eight weeks to show how they spent their days.
But in July 2023, one month before they were to compile this information, the chief judges of the Second Circuit, Third Circuit, Fourth Circuit and Fifth Circuit courts of appeal all refused to do so.
Zeringue didn’t give up. When lawmakers in May this year settled on the final details for the one-year judicial payment contained in HB 781, Zeringue got his colleagues to agree to tie participation in the study to the money.
“The work point study would evaluate the workload of judges throughout the state and determine where the resources could be better put somewhere else,” Zeringue said.
The National Center for State Courts, a Virginia-based group that had worked in Louisiana before, would conduct the study.
“If a raise should be earned, the judges should participate in the study,” Chief Justice John Weimer wrote in a December letter to the Judicial Compensation Commission.
But while signing HB 781 into law, Landry exercised his line-item veto to eliminate the requirement that judges participate in the study first.
Landry noted that the study was not scheduled to be completed until Feb. 1, more than halfway through the July to June fiscal year and that “the Supreme Court has the authority to censure, suspend, remove from office, and even withhold salary for a variety of reasons, including willful and persistent failure to perform his duty.”
The Supreme Court has not wanted to address the issue, although Weimer has pushed for it to occur.
John Michael Guidry, the chief judge of the First Circuit Court of Appeal, said his judges continue to be willing to participate in the study. His judges are seen as having the heaviest workload among the five appeals court circuits.
Left unclear in HB 781 is whether the judges and justices would receive their payment in a single lump sum or have it doled out during the year.
The Judicial Budgetary Control Board, which consists of 13 justices and judges, chaired by Associate Justice Jeff Hughes, voted on June 21 against having the payment spread out over time.
This could allow a judge who retires or moves to another job to receive the full amount in July without working the full year. Among those who stand to benefit is Associate Justice Scott Crichton, who will be termed out of office at the end of the year.
“The legislative intent was to spread it out over the year, but I guess we should have been more specific in the language,” said Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Winnfield, who sponsored the bill.
A different entity, the Judicial Supplemental Compensation Fund Board, voted on Wednesday to give judges a one-time $1,500 pay boost. This money comes from court filings and fees.