From evidence to analysis
See the pay scale, live.
The market analysis turns this evidence into an interactive exhibit — the real pay scale, the clerk schedule, and a pay-range workbench.
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We did not wait for a contract to learn the file. This page assembles the public and prior-study evidence that frames the study — what Kentucky pays, where it ranks, why the General Assembly acted, and how other states have done this. Every figure is sourced.
“…$1,000,000 in fiscal year 2026-2027 to support a contract with an external consultant to conduct a comprehensive salary and compensation study for the elected and nonelected personnel of the Judicial Branch… results… to the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue by July 1, 2027.”
HB 503 is the Legislative Branch budget; the study runs through the LRC, which is why this is an RFI. The statute is explicit on scope: both elected and non-elected personnel, and three review areas — current classifications, compensation levels, and market competitiveness — plus adjustment recommendations.
This is not opinion. It is the consistent, on-the-record finding of Kentucky’s own Chief Justices, citing the national benchmark.
NCSC, cited by Chief Justice Debra Lambert, Nov 2025. WKMS
Commonly cited gap; ~$32K (25%) below in 2022. NKyTribune
Chief Justice Lambert budget address, Nov 2025. WKMS
“Successful attorneys may have previously chosen to take a cut in pay to serve as a judge because of the potential for good retirement benefits, but that doesn’t happen anymore.”
In the twelve years to FY2022, Kentucky justices and judges received only a roughly 7% cumulative increase — four small raises, and nothing in between.
Recent catch-up has helped: Circuit judges rose about 20% over four years to roughly $156,000, and FY2026 added another ~3% across the bench. But the base was so far behind that Kentucky still ranks 48th. The current pay scale, phased FY2025 to FY2026, is documented on the market analysis page.
Annual percentage increase. Source: Chief Justice Minton FY2022-24 budget testimony (2022); Kentucky Court of Justice (FY2025-26).
The elected bench is only 412 people. The roughly 3,300 career employees who run the courts are where the classification-and-equity work is, and where the pay problem is sharpest.
About 82% of judicial-branch employees sit in the lower clerical and court-support grades — deputy clerks, court staff, and program officers.
Chief Justice Minton testimony, 2022.
Starting salaries in grades 7–11 ran roughly $23,604 to $30,936 — near-poverty wages for the people who keep the courts open.
Chief Justice Minton testimony, 2022.
Clerk pay is set by county population in eight groups, from $76,682 to $115,789 — a real structure the study must reconcile with internal equity.
Kentucky Court of Justice, clerk salary schedule.
Today, judicial salaries are set in the biennial judicial-branch budget bill, on the Chief Justice’s recommendation (KRS 48.100 / 48.110), constrained by Constitution §120, which bars reducing a judge’s pay during a term. There is no independent commission in the loop.
In 2015, HB 469 would have created a Kentucky Citizens’ Commission on Judicial Compensation — a nine-member body weighing inflation, other-state and federal pay, retention, the CPI, and private-sector comparables. It died in a conference committee and never became law. That failed design is a ready-made, made-in-Kentucky governance template this study can put back on the table.
HB 469 (2015 RS), Senate Committee Substitute. Source: legislature.ky.gov
The study draws on the strongest precedents for judicial-compensation methodology, governance, and market benchmarking — so Kentucky gets a proven approach, tailored to the Commonwealth.
The model for an independent commission using a defined multi-factor rubric, and the clearest precedent for handling regional cost-of-living. Best single template for a Kentucky governance recommendation.
Legislatively enacted increases (district judges +24% to $162,620; superior +13% to $169,125) — a comparator for the magnitude of a credible catch-up.
Virginia’s NCSC judicial workload assessment (2024) and Maine’s Judicial Compensation Commission report (2013) — precedents for data-driven, independently produced court studies.
The NCSC Survey of Judicial Salaries (the national benchmark, cost-of-living-adjusted via the C2ER index) and Raftery’s “How States Set Judicial Salaries” (Judicature, 2023) anchor the market analysis and the governance options.
Kentucky Court of Justice, Judicial Salaries & Circuit Clerk Salary Schedule — kycourts.gov
Kentucky Court of Justice, FY2023 Annual Report — kycourts.gov
HB 503 (2026 RS), enrolled bill — legislature.ky.gov
HB 469 (2015 RS), judicial compensation commission — legislature.ky.gov
Chief Justice Lambert budget address, Nov 2025 — WKMS
Chief Justice Minton FY2022-24 testimony — NKyTribune
NCSC Survey of Judicial Salaries — ncsc.org
Judicial Branch budget statement (HB 264 / HB 504) — forwardky.com
The market analysis turns this evidence into an interactive exhibit — the real pay scale, the clerk schedule, and a pay-range workbench.