LITTLE ROCK – An independent panel on Thursday called for giving Arkansas’ full-time prosecutors a 23 percent raise, with officials saying the change was needed to attract the state’s best lawyers.
The Independent Citizens Commission gave initial approval to raising the salaries for the state’s 25 full-time prosecutors from $123,162 a year to $152,000. The panel also voted to raise pay for three prosecutors who are allowed to also work in private practice from $103,058 year to $129,200.
A public hearing and final vote is planned on the pay raises May 13.
Chuck Banks, the commission’s vice chairman, said he believed the pay increase would reflect the heavy workload the state’s prosecutors face and ensure that more people would be interested in running for the job.
“It takes a special person to devote their career to protecting the citizens of a state,” Banks said.
The commission was created through a voter-approved constitutional amendment to review and adjust salaries for the state’s top elected officials. In March, it voted to more than double legislators’ salaries and granted substantial pay raises to constitutional officers and judges. The salaries for the posts had previously been set by the state Constitution, which allowed the Legislature to make annual cost-of-living adjustments. The legislative pay raises were contingent on lawmakers ending the up to $14,400 in office reimbursements they had previously received, a practice that a new state law has ended.
The pay raises mirror the recommendation of the state’s prosecuting attorneys association, which said the increases would put them more in line with the state’s circuit judges – who are paid $160,000.
Larry Jegley, the association’s president, said he was glad the commission agreed with his group’s recommendation.
“I believe folks who are dedicated to making a career of being a prosecuting attorney is only good for the community, nothing bad about it at all,” Jegley, the prosecutor for Pulaski and Perry counties, told reporters after the meeting. “I think this will encourage folks around the state who get elected prosecutor to stay there.”
(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten, broadcast or distributed.)
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