By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
The state Judiciary will not ask the Legislature for pay raises for judges this biennium, but the system that determines judicial salaries must be improved, Chief Justice Ronald Moon said yesterday.
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| Chief Justice Ronald Moon addressed state senators yesterday.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser |
In his State of the Judiciary speech in the Senate chamber, Moon said the Judicial Salary Commission will order an independent study to identify a "more timely and objective mechanism for determining judicial salary adjustments."
The state’s judges last year were given pay raises of 22 percent over two years. Salaries now range from $100,761 for District Court judges to $116,779 for the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. The raises were the first increase in judges’ pay in a decade.
Moon also spoke of reforms and programs the Judiciary has begun, such as the Hawai‘i Drug Court program, which allows offenders to avoid prison by successfully competing drug treatment.
The Drug Court program on O‘ahu alone saves taxpayers up to $800,000 a year, he said.
"The life-affirming qualities of the program are evident in the number of drug court graduates who have successfully confronted their addiction-related issues, found jobs, returned to school, reunited their families, regained custody of their children and re-entered their communities as productive, law-abiding citizens," Moon said.
He said the Maui Drug Court program was established last summer, a Juvenile Drug Court on O‘ahu begins in March, and the Judiciary is planning Drug Court programs for the Big Island and Kaua‘i.
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