|
Brown, King highest paid AGs
 | | Jerry Brown (D) |  |  | | Troy King (R) |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-At $184,301, California Attorney General Jerry Brown is the highest-paid of any attorney general in the nation,a Legal Newsline salary survey found.
Starting with California, the 10 states that pay their AGs the most are Alabama at $163,744; New York at $155,500; Tennessee at $154,800; Washington at $150,810; Illinois at $150,000; Virginia and Texas, both at $150,000; Pennsylvania at $141,565 and New Jersey at $141,000.
With the high cost of living in California and New York, it's not terribly surprising to see those states making the top-10 list. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual mean wage for lawyers in New York is $136,900 and $137,300 in California.
It is somewhat bewildering to see Alabama among the top 10, one analyst told LNL.
Alabama Attorney General Troy King is paid the second highest salary in the nation in a state where lawyers earn an average annual salary of $108,730. With a cost of living adjustment, King's salary would be to $209,664.7 in California's capitol, Sacramento.
"I'm a little surprised Alabama's at the top just because one doesn't associate high salaries with the more rural Southern states," said Michael Shires, a public policy expert with Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.
"But," he added, "it's not a smoking gun kind of surprise. It's just: Oh, that's interesting."
The Alabama AG's salary is set by law to match the Alabama Supreme Court associate justices' salaries, spokeswoman Joy Patterson said.
At $154,800, Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper Jr. takes in the fourth-highest salary. With a cost of living adjustment, that salary would be tantamount to $204,304 in Sacramento. In Tennessee, the average annual salary for attorneys is $107,490.
The nationwide average salary paid state attorneys general came to $117,513.
Shires said "there's no rhyme or reason" concerning the state-to-state variation in salaries.
"It's not a function of budget but a function of the constitutional processes." he said. "There's a way that's right for each state. It's really an issue of how the people of the state want to reward their public officials and state employees in general."
At a time when state budgets are suffering nationwide, California's Citizens Compensation Commission considered cutting Attorney General Jerry Brown's salary by 10 percent last month.
The vote fell short, however, and they froze it instead. The same commission raised the salary 5 percent last year.
Amid slumping revenues, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed across-the-board budget cuts. Schwarzenegger does not accept his $212,179 annual salary.
California is not alone with its slumping economy.
State sales and income taxes have taken a nosedive across the country, according to a report released early this month by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public-policy research arm of the State University of New York.
"The underlying trend for states is negative," the report states. "Budget cuts and other gap-closing measures likely loom ahead."
For the first time in six years, state tax revenues did not grow during the January through March 2008 quarter. State tax revenues declined 5.3 percent overall, after adjusting for tax and inflation changes.
Notably, New Jersey - which made the list of top 10 salaries paying Attorney General Anne Milgram $141,000 annually - saw a 13.7 percent drop in state tax revenues.
In fact, every state that made the top 10 salary list showed declining tax revenues.
California's dropped 5.8 percent, Alabama's dropped 4.3 percent drop, New York's dropped 1.8 percent, Tennessee's dropped 7.2 percent, Washington's dropped 5.6 percent, Illinois' dropped 3.2 percent, Virginia's dropped 5.8 percent, Texas' dropped 1.4 percent, and Pennsylvania's dropped 3 percent.
Attorneys General Salaries
1. California Jerry Brown $184,301 2. Alabama Troy King $163,744 3. New York Andrew Cuomo $155,500 4. Tennessee Robert Cooper Jr. $154,800 5. Washington Rob McKenna $151,718 6. Illinois Lisa Madigan $150,810 7. Virginia Bob McDonnell $150,000 7. Texas Greg Abbott $150,000 8. Pennsylvania Tom Corbett $141,565 9. New Jersey Anne Milgram $141,000 10. Delaware Joseph "Beau" Biden III $140,950 11. Georgia Thurbert Baker $137,791 12. Wyoming Bruce Salzburg $137,150 13. Massachusetts Martha Coakley $133,644 14. Wisconsin J.B. Van Hollen $133,033 15. Nevada Catherine Cortez Masto $133,000 16. Florida Bill McCollum $131,604 17. Oklahoma W.A. Drew Edmondson $126,500 18. Maryland Douglas Gansler $125,000 19. Michigan Mike Cox $124,900 20. Iowa Tom Miller $123,669 21. Alaska Talis Colberg $122,640 22. Hawaii Mark Bennett $120,444 23. North Carolina Roy Cooper $119,901 24. Louisiana James "Buddy" Caldwell $115,000 25. Minnesota Lori Swanson $114,288 26. Vermont William Sorrell $113,900 27. Missouri Jay Nixon $113,046 28. New Hampshire Kelly Ayotte $110,113 29. Connecticut Richard Blumenthal $110,000 30. Ohio Nancy Rogers $109,986 31. Mississippi Jim Hood $108,960 32. Rhode Island Patrick Lynch $105,416 33. Utah Mark Shurtleff $101,939 34. Kentucky Jack Conway $101,596 35. Kansas Stephen Six $98,901 36. Idaho Lawrence Wasden $95,160 37. South Dakota Larry Long $95,076 38. New Mexico Gary King $95,000 39. Nebraska Jon Bruning $95,000 39. South Carolina Henry McMaster $92,007 40. Maine Steven Rowe $90,438 41. Arizona Terry Goddard $90,000 42. Montana Mike McGrath $89,602 43. North Dakota Wayne Stenehjem $87,351 44. Indiana Steve Carter $82,000 45. Colorado John Suthers $80,004 46. West Virginia Darrell McGraw $80,000 47. Oregon Hardy Myers $77,196 48. Arkansas Dustin McDaniel $70,000
|