$43,000 raise for Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer approved 4-0-1 by Orange County Board of Supervisors

A $43,000 raise for Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer goes into effect at the end of next week following approval by the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday.

The pay bump increases his salary from $310,256.35 to $353,236. Including benefits, his overall compensation package would be valued at $531,477 annually.

Supervisors Katrina Foley, Andrew Do, Don Wagner and Doug Chaffee voted in favor of the raise. Vincente Sarmiento, the former mayor of Santa Ana who was just elected to the board in November, abstained.

“I have simply not had the time to evaluate performance,” Sarmiento said. “So I don’t want my abstention to considered any sort of comment on the success or the deficiencies in the department.”

The raise puts Spitzer’s compensation on par with what San Diego County’s district attorney receives, County Counsel Leon Page said ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

“For elected officials, we do market studies,” Orange County chief executive Frank Kim told City News Service. “And when we see large discrepancies in the market we look at the large urban counties and do a comparison of salaries. We did one big survey two or three years ago and we recently did an update with the sheriff and identified he was below his peers [in salary].”

“There was an adjustment out of San Diego that increased that district attorney’s salary,” Kim added. “So we had a large discrepancy so the board members asked me to complete a market review ... We generally follow San Diego.”

City News Service contributed to this report.

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