THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE approved a three-step pay raise for judges and other court personnel in the budget it approved this week for the coming fiscal year. The raise, if it survives the legislative process, will be the first for court officials since 2006 and the second since 2000.

The raise was contained in what the House calls a consolidated amendment, meaning it was included along with a number of other initiatives, which were voted on simultaneously to save time. The amendment provides $5.7 million to begin funding three separate pay hikes – two next year and one in 2015 – boosting a judge’s annual salary from the current level of $129,694 to $160,000, a gain of 23 percent. The pay increase would also trigger raises for clerks and registers of probate, whose salaries rise in tandem with judicial pay. If fully implemented, the total cost of the pay raises would be about $23 million a year.

 
 Chief Justice Roderick Ireland said the raise is the same recommended in 2008.

Court officials said the pay increase is badly needed because the salaries of Massachusetts judges when adjusted for cost of living currently rank 48th in the nation, with only Vermont, Maine, and Hawaii lower. Roderick Ireland, chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, told House budget officials in February that the raise sought by the court was the exact same raise that a special commission recommended in 2008. Judges do not receive annual cost-of-living adjustments.

During House debate on the measure, several lawmakers spoke in support of a judicial pay raise while none criticized it. “The time for them to be fairly compensated is long overdue,” said Rep. Sheila Harrington of Groton. “We want to make sure we are getting the best of the best.”

Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty of Chelsea, the House chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the consolidated amendment passed by the House also tacked on another $6 million to the trial court budget, bringing the total outlay to $573.9 million. That total is $12.9 million above this fiscal year’s spending level but nearly $16 million below what court officials say they need.

Judge James Collins, a former legislator and currently the head of the Massachusetts Judges Conference, has been pushing for a judicial pay raise. In a letter to House members earlier this week, he said 46 states had increased their level of judicial compensation since 2006, when the last pay raise for Bay State judges was approved.