Ex-aide: Shearing OK’d plan to hide raise money

Thursday, May 8, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Chief Justice Miriam Shearing knew and approved of the plan to hide money in the Nevada Supreme Court budget for midterm pay raises for her and two other justices, a former high-level court employee says.

Donald Mello, former director of the administrative office of the court, which prepared the budget, said Wednesday that Shearing was at budget meetings at which the ploy was hatched to ask for $170,000 for "digital equipment" when in reality the money was ticketed for $22,000-a-year salary increases for the justices.

"I sat right next to Miriam Shearing when we went through the budget request," Mello said. "She participated. She voted 'yes.'"

His statement contradicts Shearing, who told an Assembly-Senate budget subcommittee Tuesday that she never knew the money was hidden in the budget. She told legislators, "When I saw that, I said 'no.' I didn't approve of that. I wanted it to be straight up."

Shearing on Wednesday denied Mello's version.

"We (the court) voted to try to get pay equalization. I never voted to hide it as digital equipment," she said. "I don't believe in that. I find it offensive. ... They (legislators) called us liars. It bugs me."

The disclosure that the Supreme Court concealed money in its budget for pay raises has resulted in strong criticism from some lawmakers on the budget committees who complained that the court was playing a "shell game" and was lying to legislators.

Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-North Las Vegas, head of a subcommittee examining the proposed court spending plan, said, "This budget is in trouble."

The court is asking for a 40 percent increase in spending.

Shearing has complained that the system is grossly unfair because of the unequal pay among Supreme Court justices and some district judges. The Nevada Constitution prohibits pay raises in midterm. As a result, Shearing, who has been on the court four years, is earning $85,000 while the newest member of the court, Bill Maupin, has a base pay of $107,000. She will get the higher pay if she wins re-election.

Mello left his job earlier this year. Some court members said privately he was asked to resign. He says he wanted to get away from the court and departed on his own.

Mello, in charge of preparing the budget last year, said, "(Justice Bob) Rose and Shearing wanted a salary increase." The money had to be included in the budget some way so it was put under computer purchases, which was a "plausible concept," he said.

Shearing was not chief justice at the time, but Mello said she attended all three budget meetings and never objected to concealing the money. Chief Justice Tom Steffen was present and joined in the discussion but did not vote since he was leaving office in January, Mello said.

Steffen, reached in Ogden, Utah, said, "I didn't have anything to do with this." He said he was never at any meeting at which salary equalization was discussed. And he never knew about concealing the money under an equipment purchase, he said.

Hiding that money under equipment purchases, Steffen said, "is flat deceit." He said a lame-duck chief justice, which he was, does not work on the budget. That's up to the incoming chief justice, which was Shearing.

The plan, according to Mello, was for Shearing, once the budget had been presented to the Legislature, to withdraw the request, leaving $170,000 free. Then the court would ask that the money be used for pay raises. Mello said Shearing was supposed to approach lawmakers to get the plan approved.

"She was supposed to grease the skids," Mello said, referring to Shearing. There's nothing wrong with this procedure, he said. "Everybody does it."

Four days after the Legislature convened Jan. 20, the Supreme Court submitted a request to withdraw the funding for digital equipment. It also submitted budget adjustments calling for money to equalize the pay of the justices on the Supreme Court and Family Court judges in Clark County.

Although there is a bar to raising salaries in midterm, Shearing said judges can be paid for extra work.

She said Maupin and Rose talked to lawmakers, some of whom suggested including the money for pay raises in a study of the Family Court system. She said she did not know what lawmakers suggested that.

The chief justice maintains that the judges can be paid extra if they do extra work. "This would accomplish two desirable goals," Shearing said. "There's a need for a Family Court study and we would get pay equalization."

It was drafted so the 10 judges who are not getting the higher pay would serve on the study committee.

Steffen said there is no way the judges' pay can be raised midterm without changing the Nevada Constitution. "If someone takes the trouble to look, I actually told the Legislature (in 1995) that in my estimation that to provide salary increases for judges in midterm, fairness aside, would be unconstitutional."

He said he had suggested to Justice Charles Springer that a Supreme Court rule be drafted that those justices receiving the extra pay share with the other three on a voluntary basis so they make equal pay.

"If they are not willing to do that, the caseload could be redistributed, so those with the higher pay have the higher number of cases," Steffen said. "There is no way I know under our constitution that you can sneak through equalized salaries in midterm without amending the constitution."