A bill introduced Tuesday in the Florida Senate would increase the initial terms of judges of compensation claims from four to six years and bump their pay by nearly 22%.

Judge David Langham

Senate Bill 1412, sponsored by Sen. David Simmons, R-Longwood, calls for judges in the Office of Judges of Compensation Claims to be paid the same as county judges, who preside over misdemeanor criminal cases and civil cases with up to $15,000 in dispute.

County judges in Florida currently earn $151,822 — 21.9% more than the OJCC judges, who now are at $124,564.

An OJCC salary analysis published in the agency’s fiscal 2017 annual report says the pay for OJCC judges has fallen far behind inflation, even as their responsibilities have increased.

Among the key findings in the analysis:

• Florida’s population has gone from 12.64 million in 1989 to nearly 21 million today, while the number of OJCC judges has remained at 31. That means OJCC judges nearly 30 years ago — when they went from part time to full time — were each responsible for claims from any of 407,742 residents and now are responsible for 677,419 Floridians.
• Judges are paid 100% from the Workers’ Compensation Administrative Trust Fund, which is supported by assessments on workers’ compensation premiums and contributions by self-insured employers. “A salary increase in the OJCC would have no impact on general revenue expenditures,” the analysis states.
• Circuit court judges, who preside over felony criminal cases and civil cases involving more than $15,000, earn $160,688 a year. In 1989, OJCC judges earned $79,359 while circuit court judges earned about $85,000.
• If the 1989 OJCC judicial salaries had kept pace with the statewide average weekly wage, OJCC judges would make $194,232 a year.
• The pay stagnation has created a lack of interest in applicants for OJCC judges, who are appointed by the governor from a list generated by the State Judicial Nominating Commission of Judges of Compensation Claims. OJCC judges must have practiced law for at least five years and must have significant experience in workers’ compensation.

“There is a wide disparity in compensation for Florida’s Judges of Compensation Claims," according to the analysis. "Compensation has not kept pace with inflation, has become increasingly inadequate compared to other judges, and when coupled with a less generous retirement calculation is no longer adequate to encourage the application of the best and brightest."

OJCC judges get 2% of their salaries multiplied by their years of service when they retire. Other judges get 3%.

“An attorney with exceptional experience and an established practice may be unwilling to assume the risks of appointment as a JCC, based upon the historical salary stagnation, notable pension calculation differential and comparison of compensation overall to private practice,” the analysis states.

The report’s author, OJCC Deputy Chief Judge David Langham, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that his judges typically take significant pay cuts to join the agency “because they have a vision, a sense of public duty.”

The current paycheck makes it difficult to entice talented lawyers into becoming OJCC judges, he said, because it would involve most of them giving up their private practices. If they are not reappointed after their first four-year term, they have to start over in private practice.

SB 1412 calls for initial terms to be six years, followed and four-year terms upon reappointment.

“The problem from my perspective with workers’ compensation is we’re a quiet little corner of a huge state government,” Langham said. “The OJCC has a total of 170 employees and 31 judges. There are more county and circuit judges in the Panhandle than comp judges in the whole state. They seem to get noticed. Nobody really notices us.”

The pay inequality has grown, he said, because 1994 reforms omitted statutes that tied OJCC judicial pay raises to the same amount given to circuit court judges.

“No one can answer that question for me as to why the statutes on tie-ins were removed,” Langham said. “It could have been some legislators’ perception of a handful of judges or pure oversight.”

Langham’s salary analysis also states that in 2001, OJCC judges became responsible for monitoring and collecting child support without an increase in staff. Each year, the OJCC collects about $10 million in child support.

“The OJCC pay has been frozen for the better part of 20 years since they took out the legislative tie-in to circuit court salaries,” said Tampa claimants’ attorney Mike Winer.

“It’s important that if you want to attract and retain the best-qualified person, you have to pay them a competitive salary,” Winer said. “When someone becomes a judge, they give up what oftentimes is a great private practice.”

Winer, the workers’ compensation section chair for the Florida Bar in 2015-16, said one of his priorities was raising the OJCC judicial salaries, but “there was no legislative appetite for it.”

He said raising the salaries to that of county judges would cost roughly $500,000 a year, or 0.0043% of the Workers’ Compensation Administrative Trust Fund balance. What the fund earns in interest alone would be more than enough to cover the increases, Winer said.

SB 1412 is similar to House Bill 687, filed Nov. 14 and referred to the Government Accountability Committee on Nov. 27.

HB 687, by Rep. Cory Byrd, R-Neptune Beach, would expand OJCC initial terms to six years and increase the judicial salary to $10,000 below that paid to circuit court judges, currently $160,688.

While Florida’s salary for compensation judges cannot be compared on an apples-to-apples basis to salaries in other states where judges have different responsibilities, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in May 2016 that the median pay for judges, magistrate judges and magistrates nationwide was $125,880.

The Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation employs 33 administrative law judges and pays them between $64,000 and $85,000 a year, division spokeswoman Kate Sidora said.

At the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, the chair gets $125,232 plus expenses, and members get $119,840 a year as of August 2015. The state pays its arbitrators between $116,000 and $119,000 a year.

The two major insurance trade associations said Wednesday that they support increased initial terms and a bump in pay.

The American Insurance Association “appreciates the professionalism and commitment of OJCC judges and their contributions to an efficient and well-run workers’ compensation system,” said AIA Southeast Region Vice President Ron Jackson.

“It’s been a significant amount of time since those judges obtained an increase in pay,” he said.

Trey Gillespie, assistant vice president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, said states need to ensure that judicial salaries and appointment tenures attract and retain good judges.

“It is important to have highly qualified jurists who understand the complexity of workers' compensation serving as administrative law judges,” he said.