Senate bill · S10444 (2025-26)
Relates to increasing the salaries of judges
New York State Senate
Summary
Relates to increasing the salaries of judges, justices, administrators of the courts and administrative judges in various courts.
Summary from NY Open Legislation. How we handle summaries
Amends the Judiciary Law.
From NY Open Legislation, the NY Senate and Assembly, and official rosters. This record was last updated Oct 21, 2026. About our data
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Purpose, from the sponsor's memo
This bill updates the salaries set forth in Judiciary Law Article 7-B for the judges and justices serving on the following courts: Court of Appeals, Appellate Divisions, Supreme Court, Appellate Term, Court of Claims, County Court, Family Court, Surrogate's Court, New York City Civil Court, District Court, City Courts outside New York City, and New York City Housing Court. Specifically, section 1 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221 to update the salaries for the Chief Judge and Associate Judges on the Court of Appeals. Section 2 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-a to update the salaries for the Presiding Justice and Associate Justices of the Appellate Divi- sions. Section 3 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-b to update the salaries for Supreme Court Justices. Section 4 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-bb to update the sala- ries for Supreme Court Justices serving as Associate Justices on the Appellate Term. It also relocates the salary of the Presiding Justices of the Appellate Term from Judiciary Law §223 to Judiciary Law §221-bb to mirror the other courts that list salaries for the Presiding Justice and Associate Justices together. Section 5 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-c to update the salaries for Presiding Judge and the Judges of the Court of Claims. Section 6 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-d to update the salaries for County Court Judges. Section 7 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-e to update the salaries for Family Court Judges. Section 8 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-f to update the salaries for Surrogate's Court Judges. Section 9 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-g to update the salaries for Judges of the New York City Civil Court and the New York City Crimi- nal Court. Section 10 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-h to update the sala- ries for Judges of the District Court. Section 11 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §221-i to update the sala- ries for City Court Judges for City Courts Outside of New York City. It also labels the part-time judges who currently lack an explicit desig- nation of their part-time status, and ensures the correct alphabetical order of cities in that statute. Section 12 of the bill amends Judiciary Law §223 to update the salaries for Deputy Chief Administrators of the Courts, Deputy Administrative Judges, and Assistant Administrative Judges. Judiciary Law §223 is also amended to remove the salary of the Presiding Justices of the Appellate Term from Judiciary Law §223, as that salary is being added to Judiciary Law §221-bb to mirror the other courts that list salaries for the Presiding Justice and Associate Justices together. Section 13 of the bill amends New York City Civil Court Act §110 to update the salaries for New York City Housing Court Judges. Section 14 of the bill amends Uniform City Court Act §2104(d) to clarify that the fourteen cities whose part-time judges lack an explicit part- time label are correctly listed as part-time, like the remaining judges in that statute. Section 15 of the bill contains an interpretative clause to express a clear legislative intent: that this bill is designed to reflect the 2024 recommendations of the New York State Commission on Legislative, Judi- cial, and Executive Compensation and that any conflicts between this bill and the recommendations of the Commission should be resolved in favor of the recommendations. Section 16 of the bill contains an effective date that matches the effective date of the 2026 cost-of-living adjustments contained in the Commission's recommendations. 5.
Filed with the bill. Read it on nysenate.gov (opens in a new tab)
Where it stands
Assigned to a committee for review.
- Introduced
- In committee
- Up for a vote
- Passed one chamber
- Passed
- Enacted
Committee
Judiciary · New York State Assembly
Also referred to Judiciary · New York State Senate.
The sponsor's argument
Why Luis R. Sepúlveda says this is needed
This bill updates the statutes governing judicial salaries to reflect the compensation paid as of April 1, 2026. Judiciary Law Article 7-B was enacted in 1998. Since that time, judicial compensation has been updated by the Commission on Legislative, Judicial, & Executive Compensation ("The Commission") (Chapter 60 of the Laws of 2015, Part E) several times. The Commission authorized salary increases for the judicial branch in 2016 and 2024 (deferring action in 2020 during the pandemic). In its 2024 report, the Commission raised the salary for Supreme Court Justices to $232,600, effective April 1, 2024; the salaries of other judges are set in proportion to that benchmark. The Commission also authorized a 2% increase to the 2024 salaries, effective April 1, 2026. The Commission's recommendations have the force of law, subject to subsequent amendment by the Legislature. The current disparities between the codified salaries and the Commission report are stark. For example, Judiciary Law §221-B creates the impression that a Supreme Court Justice is paid $136,700 annually, and that such salary has not been adjusted since 1998. Anyone interested in the actual current salary of a particular type of judge would first have to be aware of the Commission's enabling legislation, which is not referenced in the Judiciary Law, and would then have to locate the Commission's reports. Further, for 2026, an interested party would have to compute the 2% raise that the Commission authorized in the 2024 report. While the State Comptroller has published a Payroll Bulletin to list current salaries for judges, a statutory update is preferrable, since Judiciary Law §221-B contains no reference to another source of authority for current compensation rates. While Supreme Court Justices all have one uniform salary, Judiciary Law §221-D, §221E, and §221-F each contain bands of compensation rates for County Court, Family Court, and Surrogate's Court judges, based on coun- ty-level distinctions enacted in the 1998 legislation. Determining the 2024 salary of a judge in one of these three courts in a specific county requires additional comparative analysis to determine the band in which that judge was placed in 1998. The bill also makes technical amendments to the roster of 14 City Courts to clarify that judges in these cities serve in a part-time capacity. While the statute specifies that City Court judges are part-time unless specified as full-time, the rest of the roster besides these cities specifies if such judges are part-time or full-time. Because Judiciary Law §221-1 distinguishes between full-time and part-time judges when determining salary rates, amending the roster in Uniform City Court Act 2104 complements the technical edits to Judiciary Law §221-I. This bill does not make any substantive changes to judicial compen- sation, and instead is merely a technical update to eliminate the disparity between the outdated statutes and the actual judicial sala- ries. This technical update would increase transparency by making the laws on judicial compensation accurate, and, in turn, making information on judicial compensation more easily accessible. Because the next salary change will occur on April 1, 2026, a technical update to these outdated statutes effective on and after that date will reflect the accurate judicial compensation rates until the Commission acts again in 2028. 6.
This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.
Full history
- May 15, 2026
Referred to committee
REFERRED TO JUDICIARY
NY Senate