San Juan County’s prosecuting attorney will be among the highest-paid local elected officials thanks to the Citizens Salary Commission and its recent endorsement of a pending $19,000 pay increase for that position.

On Dec. 2, the Salary Commission voted 7-3 to boost the prosecutor’s annual salary from $130,000 to $148,832 a year, beginning in 2012. How that pay increase – nearly $19,000 more than the prosecutor will earn this year – will be implemented has yet to be determined.

“The recommendation from (the prosecutor) is to phase it in over time,” said Michael Roger, chairman of the Salary Commission. “That’s probably what we’ll do with it.”

According to county Human Resources Manager Pamela Morais, the majority of commissioners were swayed by a decision by the state Legislature two years ago that the salaries of county prosecutors and superior court judges should be equivalent. San Juan County’s superior court judge, a position currently held by Judge Don Eaton, earns $148,832 a year, of which half is paid by the state.

The state will also pay up to half of the amount it contributes for a judge’s annual compensation toward the salary of an elected county prosecutor as well. (Salaries of judges of superior and district courts are determined by the state, not by a local salary commission.)

In a memo to the commission, Prosecuting Attorney Randy Gaylord noted that the amount the county will be contributing toward the pay increase equals $1,575 a month. The prosecutor received a pay increase of roughly $18,900 in 2008 as well, in step with the state legislation which intended to tie together the annual compensation of judges and prosecuting attorneys.

Roger said the commission, which will meet twice in 2011, will most likely reach a decision on how the prosecutor’s pending pay raise should be enacted when it meets in the fall. The commission’s first meeting of 2011 is slated for April 21.

Meanwhile, the commission, in a 8-1 decision, voted against granting pay raises and cost-of-living increases for any of the county’s other elected officials, with exception of the sheriff, targeted by the commission for cost-of-living increase of 1 percent, in the coming year.

The Dec. 2 meeting agenda is online.