After a jury found that Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer retaliated against the top woman in his office for helping others report sexual harassment in June, he’s now asking his employees to trust in a new HR program to report problems.  

“My goal has always been to ensure that our employees feel safe and that they have confidence in the process,” Spitzer said in a Wednesday statement. 

Until now, Spitzer’s been one of the few county leaders left to oversee their own human resources department. 

Going forward, it’ll be managed as part of the centralized countywide HR team, which reports to the county CEO and now oversees complaints for every county office except for the sheriff’s department. 

“Our office is one of the last departments not to be under central HR, and this will undoubtedly improve efficiency as well as continue to ensure employees have confidence in the process if any allegation of misconduct is alleged,” Spitzer said. 

County taxpayers are already on the hook for over $3 million, after a jury found that Spitzer mistreated Tracy Miller, the top woman prosecutor in his office who helped report sexual harassment and was then punished for it. 

[Read: OC Supervisors Don’t Answer Calls For Action Against DA For Harassment of Female Prosecutors]

Spitzer is also on the hook for personally repaying $25,000 to Miller, but there are questions around whether he’s paying that fine out of his campaign funds. 

[Read: Who’s Paying OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s Legal Bills?]

While Miller called on supervisors to sanction Spitzer in June, there wasn’t any action taken at the time. 

But supervisors started publicly discussing taking away his HR department just a couple weeks later, with some questions around why he needed his own separate department. 

At the time, supervisor Doug Chaffee asked for county staff to look at merging HR departments or adding more staff to the DA’s team “in light of some litigation.” 

“I want that to be studied,” Chaffee said. “It would free up the district attorney to do what he does really well.” 

[Read: OC District Attorney Could Lose Control of HR Department After Retaliating Against Whistleblowers]

Chaffee also backed up the switch in a statement to Voice of OC on Wednesday, thanking staff for moving forward with the split. 

“This change will allow for greater transparency and a centralized system for employees to report any misconduct,” Chaffee wrote. 

Supervisor Janet Nguyen also put out a short statement praising the shift to centralize the county’s HR. 

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento also praised the changes in a statement on Wednesday, calling for departments to also look at moving their IT departments into the CEO’s office. 

“It is my hope that these changes create a better environment for the county employees working in that office,” Sarmiento wrote. “These changes are a step in the right direction.” 

Supervisor Katrina Foley, who worked as an employee rights attorney for almost 30 years, said she hopes it’ll lead to more employees raising alarms when they see something that’s out of line. 

“I think it’s a positive move toward supporting employees,” Foley said. “It’s a new day in Orange County for the county of Orange employees.”

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.