The S.C. Supreme Court’s new chief justice has reversed the court system’s longstanding policy of keeping secret the salaries of higher-paid judges and department employees – years after The Nerve’s reporting on the issue.
The $200,000-plus salaries of state appellate, circuit and family court judges, as well as court staff making at least $50,000 annually, are now included in the state salary database, which is maintained by the S.C. Department of Administration. The move occurred after The Nerve in late July submitted a formal request under the state’s open-records law for the salaries.
In an Aug. 14 written response, Jason Bobertz, the Supreme Court’s general counsel, told The Nerve that Chief Justice John Kittredge, who took over as the administrative head of the state court system on Aug. 1, replacing the now-retired Donald Beatty, requested that the salaries be included in the state salary database.
Bobertz in his letter said the salary information “should be available online at some point in the near future.”
The Nerve for years repeatedly pointed out the Judicial Department’s lack of transparency when it came to the salaries of judges and higher-level department employees in the state’s “unified” court system, which includes appellate, circuit and family courts.
The department earlier had contended in writing to The Nerve that the S.C. Freedom of Information Act didn’t apply to the third branch of state government. While some department salary information can be gleaned from state budget records, it’s not comprehensive and or readily available to the public.
In 2022, the department released its $50,000-plus salary list only after the South Carolina Policy Council – the parent organization of The Nerve – hired a law firm to pressure the agency, which had ignored The Nerve's written requests for the list.
Kittredge’s salary for this fiscal year, which started July 1, is $240,477, according to the state salary database. Kittredge, of Greenville, began his judicial career with his election by the Legislature in 1991 to the family court, and later became a circuit and Court of Appeals judge before being elected to the Supreme Court in 2008.
The high court’s four associate justices – John Few, Gary Hill, George James and Letitia Verdin, who was elected in June by the Legislature – make $229,026 each. By law, the General Assembly annually sets the salaries of the chief justice and associate justices, based on a formula.
South Carolina and Virginia are the only states where their state legislatures play primary roles in electing judges. The Policy Council has recommended that the governor appoint judges with Senate confirmation, following the federal model.
In South Carolina, state law requires that the salaries of judges of the nine-member Court of Appeals – the state’s second-highest court – as well as circuit and family court judges, be based on a percentage of the pay of Supreme Court associate justices. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Bruce Williams’ annual salary is $226,735; associate Court of Appeals judges make $223,300 each.
The state salary database lists the annual salaries of 50 circuit court judges and 61 family court judges at $217,574 and $211,849, respectively.
The pay for appellate, circuit and family court judges increased 2.25% as of July 1 – the same percentage hike for full-time state employees making more than $50,000, as approved by lawmakers and the governor as part of the total $42.2 billion state budget for fiscal year 2024-25.
In 2018, The Nerve revealed that then-Chief Justice Beatty was seeking a 33% pay hike for himself and other judges statewide, which lawmakers later approved. With the raise, Beatty’s salary jumped from $156,234 to $208,000 – what a U.S. District Court judge earned at the time.
The current state salary database lists 318 court employees, other than judges, earning more than $50,000; the median salary, or midway point, in that group is $70,826. Among those employees, Daniel Shearouse, who formerly was the longtime Supreme Court clerk, receives the highest salary –$199,491 – as the state court administrator.
As of last Friday, the court system had a total of 622 employees, Department of Administration records show. Including judges, 442 court employees in the state salary database, or 71% of the total, have $50,000-plus salaries.
The Judicial Department’s total budget for this fiscal year, which includes state, federal and “other” funds, is $130.5 million.
Salary secrecy
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the exact compensation of a public employee earning $50,000 or more a year is a matter of public record. But the Judicial Department for years was among a small group of state agencies exempted from providing those records for the state salary database.
On its website, the Department of Administration says its Division of State Human Resources (DSHR) posts salaries in the database “for those agencies over which DSHR has some oversight function and for which DSHR has access to employee salaries for those agencies.”
The number of exempted agencies currently stands at 15, including staff of the House and Senate chambers, the state Ports Authority, state-owned utility Santee Cooper, the Medical University Hospital Authority, and the Lottery Commission.
The Nerve over the years has been required to submit Freedom of Information Act requests to exempted agencies for their salary records.
Although appellate, circuit and family court judicial salaries are now included in the state salary database, those judges are exempted by law from filing annual income-disclosure statements, known as statements of economic interests (SEIs), with the State Ethics Commission.
Generally under state law, elected and certain other state and local government officials must report their taxpayer-funded salaries on their annual SEIs, which are available online.
Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve (www.thenerve.org). Contact him at 803-394-8273 or
