Supervisors Approve $51,878 Pay Raise for District Attorney

The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $51,878 raise for the district attorney in what is believed to be the biggest pay boost ever for a Los Angeles County elected official.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich unsuccessfully tried to scale down the raise.

“What an iceberg did to the Titanic this is going to do to the salary structure in the county,” said Antonovich, whose proposal to increase the district attorney’s pay to $160,000--about the same as the county counsel--died for lack of a second.

County officials said the pay boost was needed to enable the district attorney, who runs the nation’s largest prosecutors office, to earn as much as other countywide officeholders, such as the assessor.

“People should be paid a fair salary for what they do,” said county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen in an interview. “In the final analysis, it was a feeling that the assessor shouldn’t make more than the district attorney.”

By law, the pay increase takes affect after next year’s election, in which two challengers have entered the race in an attempt to unseat incumbent Gil Garcetti. Garcetti earns $133,500 annually now; with the raise the district attorney will make $185,378.

Los Angeles County’s top officials are among the highest paid public officials in the nation. The sheriff, at $209,000, is believed to be the top paid elected official at any level of government nationally, and many county department heads make more than cabinet secretaries. With the raise, the Los Angeles district attorney will make more than the top law enforcement officer in the nation, the U.S. attorney general, who earns $151,800.

But for years the Los Angeles district attorney’s salary lagged behind those of other California district attorneys and other Los Angeles offices. Garcetti’s predecessor, Democrat Ira Reiner, did not get along with the previous, Republican-dominated board. In that era, the supervisors let Reiner’s salary languish while boosting the pay of the sheriff and assessor.

When the board majority became Democratic and Garcetti--also a Democrat--won the district attorney’s race, the county was facing a major financial crisis. Increasing the district attorney’s salary at the time was out of the question, county officials said.

But now the county budget is in the black, and Janssen said he has long been concerned that Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor made less than counterparts in San Diego or Alameda counties.