Arkansas pay commission approves 2% raises for governor, legislators, judges and prosecutors

LITTLE ROCK — The citizens panel that sets pay for Arkansas’ elected officials voted unanimously Monday to raise salaries 2% for the governor, the six other constitutional officers, all 135 members of the General Assembly, every state judge and justice, and the state’s elected prosecuting attorneys.

The Independent Citizens Commission first settled on the 2% figure at an Oct. 2 meeting at the Capitol, published the proposed numbers for public comment, and took its final vote at a 10 a.m. meeting Monday in Room 151, according to agendas posted on the commission’s website. The vote was unanimous, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

Under the salary table the commission published after the Oct. 2 meeting, the new annual pay is:

• Governor: $168,439 to $171,808
• Attorney general: $155,298 to $158,404
• Secretary of state: $111,772 to $114,008
• Treasurer, auditor and land commissioner: $105,563 to $107,674 each
• Lieutenant governor: $49,558 to $50,550
• State senators and representatives: $45,696 to $46,610
• House speaker and Senate president pro tempore: $52,191 to $53,235
• Supreme Court chief justice: $240,090 to $244,891; associate justices: $222,318 to $226,764
• Court of Appeals chief judge: $219,027 to $223,407; Court of Appeals judges: $215,736 to $220,051
• Circuit judges: $210,628 to $214,841
• District judges: $184,300 to $187,986
• Division A prosecuting attorneys (full time): $200,097 to $204,099
• Division B prosecuting attorneys (may keep a private practice): $170,082 to $173,484

Prosecutors’ pay is set by formula rather than by a separate vote. Division A prosecutors make 95% of a circuit judge’s salary, and Division B prosecutors make 85% of a Division A salary, a structure the commission adopted when prosecutors were added to its jurisdiction in 2015.

Under Article 19, Section 31 of the Arkansas Constitution, a salary adjustment takes effect 10 days after the commission files its signed resolution with the Auditor of State. Last year’s resolution made the new pay effective with the first full pay period after that 10-day mark. The signed 2026 resolution had not been posted on the commission’s website as of Tuesday morning.

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Either way, the higher salaries will be on the books before the winners of the Nov. 3 election for governor and the other six constitutional offices are sworn in in January.

Why 2%

The commission chose 2% to track the raises state employees received this year, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. In June, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced merit raises for executive branch employees of 1% for workers rated “meets expectations” and 3% for those rated “exceeds expectations.”

“We compared similar positions in other states,” Vice Chair Tommy May told the Democrat-Gazette. “And then we evaluate what those positions do, because sometimes you can have the name the same, but the work is different and we try to compensate accordingly.”

The state’s judges had asked for just that kind of parity. In a joint letter dated Sept. 1, the presidents of the Arkansas Judicial Council, which represents the state’s 126 circuit judges, 12 Court of Appeals judges and seven Supreme Court justices, and the Arkansas District Judges Judicial Council, which represents 70 district judges, asked the commission to keep giving the judiciary “a cost-of-living adjustment consistent with those provided elsewhere in state government.”

Prosecutor Coordinator Bob McMahan wrote Aug. 27 on behalf of the Prosecution Coordination Commission asking only that prosecutors’ raises keep pace with circuit judges’ and that the 95% and 85% formulas stay in place.

Treasurer John Thurston’s Sept. 24 letter, a response to an Aug. 24 inquiry from the commission, did not request a specific figure. He noted the treasury’s investment portfolio returned $391 million in fiscal 2026 on a total value of $11.5 billion and thanked the commission for keeping the constitutional offices “in line with the current market conditions.” Those three letters were the only written comments posted on the commission’s site before Monday’s vote.

Arkansas near the bottom for financial officers

A 50-state salary comparison posted among the commission’s handouts covers the four lowest-paid constitutional offices. By ABN’s count of that list, only six states pay their state treasurer less than Arkansas’ $105,563, and every neighboring state pays more: Tennessee’s treasurer makes $290,588, Oklahoma’s $160,000, Texas’ comptroller $153,750, Missouri’s treasurer $130,711, Louisiana’s $127,000 and Mississippi’s $120,000. Arkansas’ land commissioner ranks next to last among the 49 states listed, ahead of only West Virginia, and the secretary of state’s $111,772 ranks 44th of 49.

A companion spreadsheet dated Oct. 6 breaks down what each state’s financial officers actually do, from investing idle funds and running unclaimed property programs to issuing warrants and administering 529 college savings plans, the kind of job-by-job comparison May described.

Those four offices got the largest raises last year. In November 2025, the commission gave the secretary of state, treasurer, auditor and land commissioner 5% while holding the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and legislators to 1% and judges and prosecutors to 3%. Chair Annabelle Imber Tuck said then that the bigger increases were meant to bring those four offices closer to their counterparts in nearby states, and commissioners said they were cautious about larger raises because of the economic outlook for the state’s row-crop farmers, the Democrat-Gazette reported.

The constitution requires the commission to weigh “the overall economic condition of the state” each time it adjusts pay. This year’s review opened Oct. 2 with an economic overview from Department of Finance and Administration staff. DFA’s September revenue report, dated the same day, showed net available general revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 up 8.4% from a year earlier and $104.5 million above forecast, after the state closed fiscal 2026 with a $655 million surplus.

What it adds up to

Using the head counts in the judges’ letter, the judicial raises come to about $872,000 a year in salary before benefits, most of it for the 126 circuit judges and 70 district judges. The legislative raises add about $124,000 a year across the House and Senate, and the seven constitutional officers’ raises total about $16,000. ABN calculated those figures from the commission’s salary table. The commission’s documents do not list how many of the state’s prosecutors fall in Division A versus Division B, so a prosecutor total is not possible from the public record.

Sanders will not keep hers. “As in the past, the Governor will donate any pay raises she receives to charity,” spokesman Sam Dubke told the Democrat-Gazette. Attorney General Tim Griffin’s spokesman, Jeff LeMaster, said in a statement that the office appreciates “the Commission performing its constitutional responsibility.” House Speaker Brian Evans, R-Cabot, said voters entrusted the commission with the decision and that he trusts “they conducted a thorough review and gave the matter careful consideration.”

How the commission works

Voters created the commission in November 2014 by approving Issue 3, now Amendment 94, which took the power to set these salaries away from the Legislature. The governor, House speaker and Senate president pro tempore each appoint two members and the chief justice appoints one, for four-year terms with a two-term limit. Public officials, state employees and registered lobbyists are barred from serving. Any single adjustment is capped at 15%, and judges’ pay can be raised but never cut.

The first commission’s 2015 review produced the big jumps: legislators went from $15,869 to $39,400 and the governor from $87,759 to $141,000, according to the staff presentation the commission reviews each year. Since then the adjustments have ranged from nothing to about 7%, and more than once the commission has held some offices flat while raising others.

Tuck, a retired Arkansas Supreme Court justice, chairs the commission. May, the former chairman and chief executive of Simmons First National Corp., is vice chair. The other members are Larry McCredy, Rob Husong, Jan Zimmerman, Clark Smith of El Dorado and Frank Guinn.

The commission also handled a second constitutional duty this month. At the Oct. 2 meeting it voted to recommend that the House and Senate follow DFA’s Financial Management Guide for state employees when setting legislators’ mileage, expense and per diem reimbursements for the 96th General Assembly, falling back on federal General Services Administration rates where the state guide is silent. May sent that recommendation to Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester and Evans in a letter dated Monday, ahead of the regular session that convenes in January.