Missouri commission recommends $1,500 raise for judges

JEFFERSON CITY — Meeting without most of its members, a citizens’ salary commission recommends that Missouri judges and elected officials get a pay raise if state employees do.

Associate circuit judges also would get a $1,500 annual boost in each of the next two years under the proposal approved Tuesday by the Missouri Citizens’ Commission on Compensation for Elected Officials.

If state workers get no salary boost, elected officials wouldn’t either. But the associate circuit judges would still get the $1,500. The commission’s suggestions take affect unless the two-thirds of the legislature reject it.

The proposal was endorsed 9-0, but the commission is supposed to have 22 members. The vacancies are because Gov. Matt Blunt didn’t make any appointments.

Blunt says elected officials shouldn’t get raises right now.