Kansas Supreme Court Justices are trying to persuade legislators to increase salaries for judges and pay for Judicial Branch employees.

Supreme Court Justice Lawton Nuss addressed a joint session of the legislature about increasing the court system’s annual budget by about $22 million – a 16% increase.

Lonnie Clark, 65th District State Representative, said that it’s ironic to ask for a pay increase when the State is in need of money.

“It seems kind of ironic to me that the Supreme Court would overrule the new school bill/the formula, and want more money there and then turn and want more money for judges knowing fully well how desperately the State is looking for income,” said Clark.

2008 was the last time that the state’s judges and employees received a cost of living increase or pay raise.

“We were losing good judges to other states,” said Clark who noted that this is a similar argument made by those in education. “[Nuss] spent quite a bit of time talking about how we were losing judges and whether or not we could give judges more money.”

Kansas has also struggled with the recruitment and retention of teachers, especially in the western part of the state.

Nuss argued that judicial branch jobs in the state pay as much as 22% below market rates in some cases.