Pay gaps persist in Sacramento City Hall despite push to hire diverse employees

Newly hired Sacramento city employees are about as diverse as the community they serve, but that’s not the story among some of local government’s best-paid and longest-serving workers.

A new auditor’s report on diversity and salary trends in Sacramento’s 4,700-employee city government found that progress to improve staff diversity and address pay disparities remains slow.

Though about 70% of city residents are people of color, about 51% of all city employees are white, according to a city auditor’s report released last week.

About 30% of full-time city employees are women, a percentage that has remained essentially the same since 2016 when the auditor’s office began reviewing staff figures.

Among all city employees, the pay gap between men and women has widened since 2016. Seven years ago, men made about $19,900 more than women. Last summer, men made more than $24,400 more than women.

Predominantly male public safety departments account for much of the citywide gender pay disparity.

Workers in the fire and police departments, which tend to pay higher salaries compared to other city jobs and employ the largest number of full-time city staff, are overwhelmingly white and male. White workers make up about 70% of the fire department, and 64% of the police department, according to the audit.

When excluding fire and police staff, full-time male employees make an average salary of $82,050 while full-time female workers make about $80,100, the audit found.

Overall, the average earnings for a full-time female city worker is about 79% of those for a full-time white male worker. For women of color, the pay gaps are even more severe. Among exclusively full-time workers, Black women earn the lowest average salary at about $72,700.

Shifting the city’s workforce demographics to “better reflect the city to better serve the city” takes time, said Aimée Zenzele Barnes, the city’s diversity and equity manager.

The city government is working against systemic forces and barriers to opportunity, Barnes said. For example, women and people of color are far more likely to be employed in lower-paying city positions, the audit found. And under a 1996 ballot initiative that voters reaffirmed in 2020, California public employers are banned from considering race or gender when hiring.

Diverse group of new Sacramento employees

Nonetheless, the majority of new hires are people of color, according to the report. Nearly 840 new workers were hired in the 2021 fiscal year, about 47% of whom are women. In comparison, a third of staff hired before July 2020 are women. About 55% of newly hired managers are women.

The percentage of Latino and multiracial staff overall has also increased compared to 2016, and a higher percentage of managers are Latino, Asian and Middle Eastern or North African.

The challenge is retaining the diverse new workers the city hires, Barnes said. On that front, Barnes said the city is heading in the right direction.

In a new climate survey released with the audit that drew from the responses of nearly 950 city employees, more respondents said they feel gender diversity, ethnic diversity and LGBTQ+ inclusivity is a priority for the city compared to last year’s survey.

“When you hire folks you want them to stay, you want them to have a sense of belonging,” Barnes said. “There is an expectation built into your job that you have (diversity, equity and inclusion) competency as a manager. ... There’s more accountability and expectation of having implicit bias training.”

Discriminatory behavior in workplace

Still, one in three respondents said they have witnessed discriminatory behavior in the workplace in the last year, and about 27% said they witnessed or experienced microaggressions in the workplace. About one in five said they have felt excluded or not welcome in the workplace because of their race, and 12% said they felt the same way because of their gender identity.

To improve employment retention and create more pathways for staff to move up career-wise, the city is developing a pilot mentoring program with an eye toward advancing gender and racial equity, Barnes said.

In addition, the city is considering removing college degree requirements for certain jobs, which can be a barrier of entry for low-income residents and communities of color and keep “skilled and talented workers out of certain positions, lowering their earning potential,” Barnes said.

“If you don’t have a four-year degree, you can substitute for five years work experience” or relevant volunteer experience, Barnes said.

In an effort to further investigate pay disparities, the city has already hired an external consultant to conduct a citywide classification and compensation study. Sacramento is also expected to conduct a comprehensive pay equity study next year, which could look at how additional factors like job roles, education, experience and more may be contributing to pay gaps.

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 6:30 AM.