Could City Hall's gender pay gap soon be a thing of the past?
'You don't need a committee to...determine whether women are being paid appropriately'
There's long been a disparity between what men and women make at City Hall. That pay gap has been around, well, just as long as City Hall has existed. But Mayor Kasim Reed wants to change that with a new measure to ensure that women working for the city will finally receive equal pay.
Reed today announced that he'll introduce a proposal that would require all female city employees to receive equal salaries to their male counterparts. He urged Atlanta City Council to pass the legislation, which he'll introduce on Monday, as soon as possible to help the thousands of women employed by the city.
"You don't need a committee to examine the payroll of 8,500 people who work in the city of Atlanta to determine whether women are being paid appropriately," Reed said during his annual "State of the City" address. "And we can do something about it without any external sources or voices. And we can change the lives of people in the city right now and be an example for other cities across the United States."
According to Reed, the idea originally came from former Mayor Shirley Franklin, whose administration studied the issue. But when the economy tanked during the Great Recession, the plan was effectively put on the shelf. Reed has decided to revisit the equal-pay plan now that the city's in better financial shape.
"A lot of lives can be improved," Reed told reporters after the speech. "If you want to help a family, help a mom earn more money. It's something we know. But we didn't have the money to address. Now we're financially strong enough to deal with it."
We don't know yet how much the long-overdue measure will cost the city. According to Reed Spokeswoman Anne Torres, officials have recently completed an initial analysis of the equal-pay proposal. She said the final funding estimates were still being finalized. We'll provide an update once they become available.
The mayor made clear, however, where he'll find cash to fund the proposal: City employees won't receive permanent pay raises, equal wages aside, as long as a lawsuit over Reed's pension reform plan continues.
"We're in litigation," Reed told reporters. "Until it's done, I'm not going to have a conversation about raises for people who are suing to unravel the pension reform effort that's the reason that you had all the good news in regard to our finances. ... This problem regarding equal pay with women is one we ought to go ahead and take on because it's been that way for some time."