City of Los Angeles / Controller / Accountant
Job-title file
Accountant
Maintain financial records, prepare budgets and reports, and ensure compliance with fiscal rules.
14 employees hold this title in Controller. Median total compensation for the role is $113,043, above the department median of $111,100.
- Employees
- 14
- Total payroll
- $1.5M
- Role median
- $113,043
- Agency median
- $111,100
- Comparison
- Above
What the records show
Role pay distribution
Pay distribution for this role
How total compensation varies among the 14 people in this role. Even for one job title, pay differs with seniority, step, overtime, and tenure. Each bar is a pay range; the far-right bar collects the highest earners.
Compared with the local labor market
Accountant pay vs. the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA area
Across all employers in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA area, the median wage for Accountants and Auditors — about 70,640 people — is $94,360. Controller pays a median base salary of $90,829 for this role, 4% below that figure — about the 46th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Controller sits in the local pay range
The bar is the range of annual wages for Accountants and Auditors across every employer in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA area, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Controller’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Accountants and Auditors — about 1,449,500 people — is $83,680. Controller’s median base salary is 9% above that national figure, about the 57th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 13 of 14 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Controller is $113,043, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
This role across City of Los Angeles
Accountant is held in 25 City of Los Angeles departments. In Controller, the median of $113,043 ranks #4 of 25.
Highest-paying departments for this role
Median total compensation for the Accountant role in other City of Los Angelesdepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.
Compare jurisdictions
Accountant beyond City of Los Angeles
This role is reported in 38 jurisdictions. In City of Los Angeles, the median of $104,820 ranks #8 of 38. See Accountant across all of City of Los Angeles →
Highest-paying jurisdictions for this role
Median total compensation for comparable Accountantroles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.
Record list
Employees with this title
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No employees match these filters.