Senate boosts raise for clerks-magistrate to $22,000
With no recorded vote, the Senate has quietly added an amendment to a state spending plan to boost the salaries of 118 clerks-magistrate of the Massachusetts trial court by another $9,000 a year, bringing their total pay hike to $22,000 in the coming year.
The extra money would give 118 clerks an annual salary of $109,710. The Senate leadership put the pay raise in its $240 million supplemental budget just minutes before the lawmakers ended their 2005 legislative session. It is expected to win approval from the House.
The raise for the clerks-magistrate would also boost the salaries of the 364 assistant clerks and 104 first assistant clerks, all of whose salaries are a percentage of what the clerks-magistrate make.
Among other duties, a clerk-magistrate holds probable cause hearings and handles arraignments.
The annual cost to taxpayers for the entire package would be $4 million, according to the group's association, which lobbied for the increases.
The salary increases for the clerks were proposed in the same week the Senate, in the same budget plan, raised the pay of the state's 14 sheriffs to $123,209 a year.
The senators want to abolish the system of prorating sheriffs' salaries according to the population of the counties and instead paying them at 95 percent of the salaries of trial court judges. The change would result in increases ranging from $16,000 to $39,000 a year.
The clerks, who have not had a pay increase in five years, were already in line to get a 15 percent raise because their salaries are tied by statute to judicial salaries, which are also due to increase. Under current law, the clerks get 75 percent of what the trial court chiefs receive. The Legislature is approving a 15 percent hike for trial court judges.
Senate President Robert E. Travaglini yesterday insisted the process had been open to public scrutiny.
''Every senator knew exactly what they were voting for," Travaglini said. ''We had the conversation in the caucus and there was no opposition, to my recollection, to increasing the ratio."
Robert F. White, the legislative agent for a Massachusetts association of clerks-magistrate, said the group is arguing the case that its members deserve the same salary as the clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court.
''It's a parity issue," said White, who worked the hallways of the State House Wednesday when the House and Senate rushed to wrap up business for the year. ''I think it should be 90 percent but we are just looking for parity."
