DE BLAS CEILING
Mayor’s top female aides make 10% less than men
Mind the gender pay gap, Mr. Mayor.
Hizzoner has more women working for him than men — but they still get paid less than their male colleagues.
Women at the highest levels of the administration made $227,509 on average, which is 10.2% less than the $253,235 average for men, according to a Daily News analysis of salaries for 69 commissioners, agency heads and directors. Of those top officials, 38 are women.
That means they took home an average of 90 cents for every dollar men like Mayor de Blasio earned.
But City Hall’s gender pay gap goes beyond the prominent women commissioners and agency heads across the de Blasio administration — impacting hundreds of other top officials, aides and lower-level staffers working directly for the mayor’s office as opposed to other agencies.
Women working full-time for the mayor’s office had an average base salary of $104,204 in fiscal year 2019, which is 4.5% less than the average pay for men of $109,142, The News analysis of payroll records found.
“Compounded over the years of employment at City Hall, it’s a significant loss of income for those women,” said Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women New York City and New York State. “When you consider that many women experience a pay gap at many points throughout their career, the loss is staggering and impacts families’ standard of living and women’s quality of life in retirement.”
De Blasio said in 2017 that closing the pay gap helps women gain an estimated $418,000 more in pay over their careers.
“It is unacceptable that we’re still fighting for equal pay for equal work,” he said then. “The simple fact is that women and people of color are frequently paid less for the same work as their white, male counterparts.”
The top earner in de Blasio’s office is a white man — First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan — who made $282,659 last fiscal year. The second-highest paid is de Blasio himself, who now takes home $258,750 a year after he signed a law bumping his salary.
And outside the mayor’s office, the second-highestpaid administration official is a white man with a salary that eclipses the two women who had the gig before him.
Greg Russ, chairman of the New York City Housing Authority, now makes $414,707 a year, part of which comes from federal funding.
Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, meanwhile, only earned an annual salary of $236,088 while she was serving as interim chairwoman of the public housing authority earlier this year. And former NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye was making $231,684 when she left the administration in 2018.
De Blasio’s office stressed that the federal government told the city to increase Russ’ salary.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza makes $363,346 a year. His initial salary was $110,431 higher than his female predecessor, Carmen Fariña, who made $234,569 annually before she left the de Blasio administration in 2018.
The mayor’s office noted Carranza relocated to New York City and that Fariña was also getting a pension so her salary only shows a portion of her income.
De Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said the 10.2% pay gap at the top of the administration was “skewed” by Russ’ six-figure salary, as well as that of Mitchell Katz, a man who runs the city’s public hospital system and makes $669,227 a year. Katz’s salary is set by the system’s board, of which de Blasio appoints a majority of members.
“Without those exceptions, women make 97 cents for every dollar a man makes and we plan to close that 3-cent gap,” said Goldstein, who makes about 2.7% less than her male predecessor.
The mayor prides himself on having “the most diverse administration … this city’s ever seen” with women making up more than half of those in leadership positions.
Women did make up half of the top 20 earners in the de Blasio administration in fiscal year 2019, which ended June 30, but their average salaries were 5% less than the 10 highest-paid men, The News found. The top 10 paid men took home $259,371 on average in fiscal year 2019, compared to the average base salary of $246,257 for the women.
“Simply put, pay inequality is insidious and is a serious injustice to tackle,” Ossorio said. “The de Blasio administration likely needs a review system to ensure an end to any pay gap in his administration and in city agencies.”
The city started offering women workshops on how to ask for raises this fall to lessen the pay disparity. City lawmakers have also enacted a ban on employers asking job seekers’ salary history during the hiring process.
The state also passed legislation from Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx, Westchester) that requires employers to give equal pay for “substantially” similar work and prohibits differential pay based on one’s protected class, including gender.
“Under the new laws, both private and public employers will have to be cognizant of protected classes and will be held liable if they fail to correct any gaps in wages,” Biaggi said. “Like every other state and city agency, as a public employer the office of the mayor will have a responsibility to abide by these measures, evaluate their payroll, and take action to remedy any discriminatory discrepancies in the salaries of their staff.”
The Daily News analyzed base pay for 634 annual staffers in the mayor’s office in fiscal year 2019, including 386 women and 222 men. The News couldn’t identify the gender of 26 other employees in the office.
The pay disparity exists because a smaller share of women in the office take home top salaries compared with men.
Just under 13% of women in the office made over $160,000 in fiscal year 2019, while 17% of the men earned more than that, The News found.
Still, the gender pay gap in the mayor’s office was worse in fiscal year 2018, when women were paid an average base salary of $99,690. That’s 6% less than the $105,935 average pay for men in the office.
The inequality narrowed in 2019 partially because women staffers at the office got larger raises than men last year, The News found.
Women on the payroll during the last two fiscal years saw average raises of $7,746 in raises compared with $6,583 for men.
“Under this mayor, more women have a seat at the table than ever before,” Goldstein said.