Part One of this series revealed persistent and significant differences in pay between female and male employees of Montgomery County government. Why do these gaps exist?
To further examine this issue, I took a deep dive into the 2017 employee salary file. (The 2018 file was published right after I analyzed 2017.) The county’s salary data does not include employees of affiliated agencies like county public schools, Park and Planning, Montgomery College, the Housing Opportunities Commission and the Revenue Authority.
The table below shows gender gaps in current annual salary, gross pay received and overtime pay in 2017.
In 2017, female county employees earned 94 percent of male current annual salaries, 83 percent of male gross pay received and 26 percent of male overtime. Let’s examine a few factors that are relevant to pay and can be found in the salary file.
Managerial Status
The table below shows the number of women and men in managerial and non-managerial positions and the pay categories paid to each gender therein. Employees designated as managers/directors include elected officials; department heads; those with the words manager, chief, captain or director in their titles; assistant sheriffs; the inspector general; the county attorney and the council administrator.
Women are 39 percent of county managers and 41 percent of non-managers. That’s not a big difference. Gender pay gaps are present among both managers and non-managers and they are mostly of similar size between the two groups. The overtime gap is larger for managers than non-managers. That might be connected to the fact that managers in public safety positions, which are male dominated, receive large amounts of overtime relative to other managers. (Check out how many fire and rescue captains receiving overtime appear in the list of the county’s highest paid employees in 2017.)
Seniority
The table below shows seniority distributions for women and men and pay differentials among three seniority ranges: up to 5 years, 5 to 20 years and more than 20 years.
There is no significant difference between women and men in seniority. In fact, women have a slightly higher average seniority (13.3 years) than men (12.6 years). Interestingly, gender pay gaps tend to grow with seniority. Among employees with less than 5 years of seniority, women earn 92 percent of the gross pay earned by men. But among employees with more than 20 years of seniority, women earn 78 percent of the gross pay earned by men. Female percentages of male salary and overtime also fall with seniority. It appears that gender pay gaps are not huge in the first years of hire but grow significantly over time.
Salary vs. Gross Pay
The table below shows current annual salary and gross pay received by women and men in four pay brackets: over $150,000, $100,000-150,000, $50-100,000 and less than $50,000. The two pay measures behave very differently.
In terms of annual salary, women are 36 percent of county employees earning more than $150,000 and 47 percent of those earning less than $50,000. But in terms of gross pay received, women are 21 percent of county employees earning more than $150,000 and 56 percent of those earning less than $50,000. That skew can be explained in part by overtime and full- vs part-time status.
Part 3, publishing Friday, will examine those two factors and dig into pay differentials within county departments as well.
Adam Pagnucco is a writer, researcher and consultant who is a former chief of staff at the County Council. He has worked in the labor movement and has had clients in labor, business and politics.
