Sharing the burden

By: By Editorial Board | Mooresville Tribune
Published: May 10, 2009

In an effort to offset an estimated $3 billion budget shortfall, the governor has ordered all rank-and-file state employees to take a modest pay cut between now and the end of the fiscal year.

North Carolina judges, who are among the highest-paid state employees, are exempt from the executive order because the state constitution dictates that judges' salaries cannot be changed between terms.

That creates a potential for feelings of animosity by lower-paid workers.

That won't happen here in our judicial district.

Chief Judge L. Dale Graham announced Friday that the district and superior court judges who serve in Iredell and Alexander counties have agreed to a voluntary pay reduction through June 30.

"The citizens of our State are suffering in this current economic crisis," Graham said in a statement. "Futhermore the state employees with whom we work in our offices and court rooms have incurred an involuntary reduction in their pay and we felt that it was fair for us to share the burden in these difficult times."

That sense of a shared purpose has helped employees and companies in the private sector weather the economic recession. It will help the state do the same.

We applaud judges Christopher M. Collier, Joseph N. Crosswhite, Deborah P. Brown, H. Thomas Chuch, Edward L. Hedrick IV, Christine Underwood and Dale Graham for this selfless decision.