Often when I’ve argued that we need to raise South Dakota’s teacher pay from last in the region to compete for more talent, I’ve heard fellow South Dakotans say that the average teacher salary (now just a tick above $49K, up notably from $35.2K ten years ago) is better than what a lot of other South Dakotans make, so teachers should just shut up and be grateful to live in the greatest, cheapest state in the nation.
I am thus heartened to hear Senate President Pro-Tem Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Watertown) reject the application of that market-blind thinking to new Chief Justice Steven Jensen’s call to raise judge pay:
“The state judicial qualifications commission has warned for several years that inadequate compensation is contributing to a lack of applicants for judicial positions,” Jensen says. “The UJS conducted an informal study of attorneys last year and found that judicial compensation was a significant issue discouraging qualified attorneys from applying for judicial positions.”
That’s something that the Republican leader of the Senate says he supports. State Senator Lee Schoenbeck sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is also a trial lawyer. He says it’s almost impossible to get a lawyer to leave private practice to take a position on the bench.
“It’s $141,000 a year, what a circuit judge makes and you might say, ‘Well, that’s a lot,’” Schoenbeck says. “But, it isn’t if you’re in the marketplace trying to compete and pull people away from the private sector. It’s not going to do it” [Lee Strubinger, “SD’s New Chief Justice Calls for Pay Increase for State’s Circuit Court Judges,” SDPB, 2021.01.13].
Chief Justice Jensen offered these details on South Dakota’s low judge pay in his first State of the Judiciary Address Wednesday:
As of July 2020, a comparison of the judicial salaries of other states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories shows that the salary for South Dakota justices and circuit judges was 51st and 49th, respectively. To provide some regional comparisons, the annual salary for our circuit judges trail[s] Nebraska judges by nearly $40,000, Wyoming and Minnesota judges by nearly $30,000, and North Dakota and Iowa judges by over $15,000. We have been lucky so far to fill our vacant judicial positions across the state with qualified individuals. But I would respectfully suggest we should not trust the future of our justice system to luck [Chief Justice Steven Jensen, State of the Judiciary Address, Pierre, SD, 2021.01.13].
Indeed, luck is no way to run a justice system, an education system, or any other vital civic institution. We get what we pay for, and if we don’t pay competitive wages, we won’t keep top talent.
And that’s Republican Senator Schoenbeck talking. I hope he’ll help me apply that sensible thinking across our state budget… and put some money where his mouth is by challenging the Legislature to raise the money (i.e., the taxes) necessary to pay our public servants competitive wages.
The salary should be keyed to the cost of living, also, and the representative wage for low income workers in the state. For example, if the minimum wage in SD is $7.50 and the minimum wage in Seattle is $20.00 – don’t preach that judges, highway patrol, and teachers in South Dakota should receive Seattle salaries. If judges, highway patrol, teachers want Seattle salaries – move. My kids and tens of thousands have. I’ll break my kids necks if they return for more than a visit to this SD political, economic, social backwater.
Yet, I recently settled my sole-practitioner father’s affairs. He never earned more than $50,000 a year. His attitude was that he was able to sleep at night. Yet, he traveled the hemisphere and Europe. He lived beneath his means. I thought we’d have to pass the hat to pay for his funeral. The rascal was: https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474
My line of public teachers, professors, judges, justices, doctored medical professionals, and soldiers, stretches 3 generations over 100 years. I’ve no quarter for supposed public servants whining for pay beyond their neighbors, when they have job security and benefits beyond what their neighbors enjoy. Who is serving whom? Get a pair.
Free market. Have a desirable skill and work hard, get paid more. Have an ordinary skill or slack off, get paid less. Want more money, work harder. This applies to Teachers, Burger Flippers, Lawyers, Lobbists, and even Nurses. Don’t settle for cost of living indexed raises. Work harder!
And it works, too. The best ones make the most and rise up.
Its want more money work another job for the reality of a lot of South Dakotans, Grudzilla. Enough with the foolish nonsense about working harder. You would have made a ruthless slave owner.
Last week Wednesday after reading about the Scholarship Program that Noem announced, the first thing I thought of is how many of those scholarship recipients will leave SD because SD is a low wage state.
If SD wants the the brightest and best, you got to pay the money.
Grudznick, have you ever waited tables for a living? $4.55 an hour in S.D. and as low as $2.13 an hour in Texax. They work hard, and customers don’t always leave tips. Why should the customer pay their wages? It’s pitiful that we allow employers to take tips from their employees if their hourly wage ($4.55) plus hourly tips make over the minimum wage ($9.50). Employers also have the power to pool an employees tips to share with other employees.
Do these women not work hard enough?
Or are they treated this way because they are women.
The average pay for a judge in S.D. is around $93,000.
The average pay for superintendents in public schools is around $140,000
The average pay for a sheriff is $56,000
The average pay for a teacher is $50,000
A waitress makes $4.55 an hour
Who did Schoenbeck recommend for a raise?
If I were in the Legislature I’d be putting in a bill to reduce the pay for legislators and judges. During the pandemic most of us have had to reduce our standard of living. Time to share the pain,
I’ll just note again that South Dakota’s median household income rank #33 among the states + D.C., about the same as Ohio and Indiana. Is there an objective reason salaries for teachers etc. shouldn’t be in that range, and not #49-50?
Some say: “If you don’t like it, move.” What that also means is that often the best-qualified folks leave.
M: great note and analysis.
The average superintendent is not super- based on the lack of international standing our high school achievement.
The average superintendent should receive pay no more than ~$5k – to – $10k above the average teacher. If they want to sell insurance, let them. (Apologies to insurance sellers.)
We should pay the superintendent (and teachers) more commensurate with producing student achievement that matches or exceeds that of the students of Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, etc. It’s a false metric comparing student acheivement from Buggtussle to Podunk. Compare one’s students to those in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Seoul – it’s an global economy.
Replying to John:
When the typical child in South Dakota is part of a family with guaranteed, national health care, subsidized child care and parental leave, and relative income equality … then you can compare test scores with places like Denmark and Sweden.
Geezus, South Dakota. Stop being provincial and disappointing.
Average school superintendent salary $108,076
https://doe.sd.gov/ofm/documents/StaffInfo-Admin-19-20.pdf