Orange County supervisors Tuesday approved a nearly $43,000 pay increase for District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
The pay increase was a late add to the board’s agenda for Tuesday’s meeting. His annual salary was increased from $310,256.35 to $353,236. His overall compensation increased to $531,477 including all benefits.
The board voted 4-0 for the pay increase with Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento abstaining because he said he has not been on the board long enough to fairly consider Spitzer’s job performance.
“I have simply not had the time to evaluate his performance,” Sarmiento said. “But I don’t want my abstention to be considered a comment on the success or deficiencies in the department… I haven’t had a chance to get to know or evaluate his performance or management of his office.”
Orange County CEO Frank Kim told City News Service the pay increase was made to keep pace with Spitzer’s equivalent in San Diego County, Summer Stephan.
“For elected officials we do market studies, and when we see large discrepancies in the market we look at the large urban counties and do a comparison of salaries,” Kim said. “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).”
Spitzer pointed out he was making less than other district attorneys of counties of comparable size, Kim said.
“There was an adjustment out of San Diego that increased that district attorney’s salary,” Kim said. “So we had a large discrepancy so the board members asked me to complete a market review… We generally follow San Diego.”