The newspaper analyzed the salaries of county, municipal and township employees, excluding university, education and elected positions, in Butler and Warren counties. The analysis found that 15 local governments had at least one employee earning $100,000 in salary and other compensation after reviewing thousands of public employee salary records.
Of the 5,420 full-time government employees who work in the two counties, 2,313 were women. Of that total, there were 128 people or 2.36 percent who earned $100,000 or more in salary and other compensation in 2011. Fourteen of those employees were women.
The high pay for area men in government positions mirrors a national trend for gender in private positions in the United States. The gap for men and women in annual salaries is just under 23 percent in the private sector, according to a study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in 2011.
West Chester Twp. Administrator Judi Boyko, who earned more than $143,000 in salary and other compensation last year, is the highest-compensated woman working in local government in either county.
Boyko would like to see more women in local government. Of the top 1,000-compensated men and women in local governments in both counties last year, only 117 were women.
“That’s a natural hope for accomplished, educated women. However, I believe the role of professional positions should be filled by the most qualified and based on the need of that community at that time — and that’s not gender specific,” Boyko said. “The primary determinate for qualifications for any position should be experience, education, and related credentials.”
Boyko could not give specifics on why women are not compensated at the same rates men are, but added, “it is likely over time more women may become more involved in careers that have been predominately filled by men.”
Commissioner Don Dixon, who championed a Butler County government 2010 pay study by Clemans Nelson & Associates of Dublin, said before any judgments are made the types of positions being paid should be considered.
“It depends on what the job requires, and what kind of experience they have,” Dixon said about the amount of compensation paid. “There are a lot of factors that go into it.”
Pay disparity is ‘very slowly getting better’
According to the Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics, women in Ohio earn about 81 percent of the median weekly earnings of their male counterparts.
The pay disparity is “very slowly getting better,” said Jackie Hillyer, president of Ohio National Organization for Women.
“I think that’s typical and I think that you’ll find from state to state that women that work in the public sector tend to do a little bit better than their counterparts in the private sector,” Hillyer said. “They’re more comfortable in their jobs because they don’t fear of losing their jobs for no good.”
Partly it’s because it is a public job and the media and citizens watch government closely, but more so it’s because of the laws regulating behavior are in place.
“The behavior follows the law and the cultural expectations follow the behavior,” Hillyer said.
She said an example of those changes would be Title IX, the federal law that regulates equality in men and women collegiate athletics. Hillyer said the law was enacted 40 years ago this year and now “cultural expectations have changed” when it comes to equality between men and women collegiate athletics.
Hillary Stevenson, one of Hamilton’s deputy city managers and former law director, is the highest paid woman in the city’s administration. In 2011, she earned $118,067 in salary and other benefits.
Stevenson, who is part of the city’s executive leadership team, said pay ranges and rates are determined most of the time by wage studies or by a collective bargaining contract. She also said there are differences in pay for technical, clerical and professional employees.
“When I started as an assistant law director, there was a set pay range for the position,” Stevenson said. “When wage studies are done, they are determined by set duties and tasks whether it’s a man or woman occupying that job classification.”
She said up until the early to mid-1980s, most clerical jobs were filled by women and most municipal jobs were filled by men.
“We’ve seen a lot of changes in the last 20 years as there are more women entering becoming accountants, lawyers and engineers,” Stevenson said. “We are seeing more women going into government and there are women who going into traditionally male positions.”
West Chester Twp. Trustee Catherine Stoker said she’s not surprised by the ratio of men to women working in local government, but like Boyko, is a champion of women being in government positions.
“Women have more than earned their right, and public entities are better off to have a wider number of viewpoints,” she said. “Only in the last 20 years have women started to make inroads. They’ve been kept at the worker-bee level, but their work and talent are gradually moving them to the top.”
Stoker also said compensation is also a matter of what they do to earn the money.
“I think it reflects the status quo that’s been in place for a long time, but it’s slowly changing,” Stoker said of why more men are in leadership positions in government.
Change is happening
Steve Husemann, Middletown’s human resources director, has been involved in local government since 1974. He served as city manager in Tipp City, Sidney and Kettering, where he retired. He also served as Middletown’s interim city manager.
Husemann said he was “surprised” with the ratio of men to women in highly compensated and high-level positions.
“I’ve certainly seen more women getting increasingly involved. I don’t see any gender advantage one way or another in the nature of the work,” he said.
Husemann said a reason why there are not more women in department head and leadership positions may be due to the historical trends.
“We’re fishing in a stream that’s mostly male-dominated to begin with,” he said. “It used to be that city managers and township administrators were engineers or in the planning and zoning (departments). Certainly we have more female engineers now.”
Middletown City Manager Judy Gilleland said the disparity among men and women has changed over her 30-year career.
“When I first started out in local government, often times and for many years, I was the only female attending meetings and functions. That has changed significantly over the years,” Gilleland said.
In 2011, Gilleland earned $133,073 in salary and other compensation.
Historically, many jobs in government — police officers, firefighters, maintenance crews, laborers — have been male-dominated. Gilleland said of those jobs that traditionally draw more men and the odds of having more men in supervisory roles are greater.
“But then again, that’s changing,” she said as more women have entered the ranks of the male-dominated jobs. “It’s been a gradual change in my 30 years.”
Still ‘tend to be underrepresented’
Ariane Hegewisch, director for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization, said people who work for government, especially in the high-level management positions, tend to be more a more educated workforce.
But women “tend to be underrepresented” in the higher levels of management positions, Hegewisch said.
But depth of the position needs to be part of the analysis — education level, scope of the job, number of employees being managed.
Looking at Butler and Warren counties from a surface level, Hegewisch saw two key issues:
First, pay disparities “might be the way departments are valued and paid,” she said. Engineering and planning departments might be valued higher than parks and recreation. The other issue is tenure in a given position.
For example, Fairfield City Manager Art Pizzano was compensated more than $184,000 in base salary (which is $153,283) and benefits, but has been with the city for 14 years and has three decades worth of experience.
“That picture may be different in five years,” Hegewisch said.
She said some areas in the country are moving faster in bringing women into government and placing them in high-level jobs than others.
While some in the field say the change of more women entering government and taking higher-level jobs is slowly happening, Hegewisch said “it doesn’t come automatically. You need to focus on it.”
Many factors in compensation
Three of top 10 highest-compensated Butler County employees in 2011 were women: Susan Vance, director of Environmental Services Department; Chris Hurr, superintendent of Developmental Disabilities; and Laura Joy Campbell, assistant human resources director.
Commissioners Cindy Carpenter and Chuck Furmon declined to comment about why there was a gender disparity between high level county employee salaries.
Carpenter said there have been changes made since the county’s pay study was completed in May 2011 and that positions were defined and standardized. She said a rating scale was also developed for the positions.
“I don’t feel like the county hasn’t finished the reorganization of pay for each department,” Carpenter said. “By redistributing work and looking at technology we’re making the offices more efficient. This will continue over the next few years and we’ll be moving quicker on this when a new county administrator is hired.”
Furmon said he didn’t think much has changed. He said he was opposed to the Clemans Nelson pay study that cost taxpayers more than $100,000 because a previous study done by that company was done in 1984 “and was never fully utilized.”
“To my view, it affected 39 percent of county employees,” Furmon said. “It was not fair because very few were General Fund employees and most were employed by enterprise funds.”
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