John Kasich’s Highest Paid Staffers Are All Men

When Ohio Governor John Kasich appeared on CNN yesterday morning to talk with Jake Tapper, he was faced with a question about  Donld Trump’s latest round of sexist comments.  Kasich stuck to his script, refusing to directly attack Trump while using the opportunity to talk about himself.  Kasich discussed the fact that his chief of staff is a woman, and hinted that hiring women is top priority. “I actively seek out and recruit women to be involved,” Kasich said.  “Because, uh,  like I say, they make things better.”

We took a look at the staff list for Kasich’s office and, to be fair, he does have more women on staff than men.   However, when it comes to pay and position, men appear to have almost exclusive access to the top spots.

Plunderbund looked at the most recent state employee salary data published by the Ohio’s Department of Administrative Services (DAS) and the latest version of the contact list published by John Kasich’s Governor’s office.   We identified 75 state employees who we could positively link to John Kasich’s office.

Our analysis shows that the top 8 highest paid staffers in Kasich’s office are all men, 17 of the top 25 highest paid staffers are men and, on average, men are paid much more than women.

As of last month, Kasich’s highest paid staffer was Beth Hansen, his  chief of staff.  She has since left to work for Kasich’s presidential campaign, leaving Karen Huey the next highest paid female staffer in the governor’s office.  Huey, who actually works for the Lt. Governor, moves into spot number 9 with Hansen’s departure.

On average, men in Kasich’s office make 36%** – or over $770 – more per paid period than women.  And while Kasich’s office does employee more women than men (39 women vs 32 men), men are much more likely to be employed in high-paid positions.  This becomes amazingly clear when you realize that the sum of the salary received by all the men on Kasich’s staff exceeds the sum for all women by $9,700 per pay period, even though there are seven more women working in his office.

Sure, John Kasich may “actively seek out and recruit women” for his staff.  Unfortunately, those women are paid much less on average than the men in his office, and there is a severe shortage of women in top-paying roles.

In 2011 Kasich was confronted about choosing women for only 4 of 23 cabinet positions.  He defended his decision by saying he only looks for the “the best and the brightest ” and then making a joke about how his “wife makes all the minor decisions” for his family.

He defended an earlier non-diverse cabinet appointment by similarly mentioning his wife: “I’m married to a woman with two daughters, OK? I’ve said all along, I really wish I could get some guys around me.”

At a 2012 Romney rally in Ohio, Kasich talked about the wives of the men standing on stage, and the reason the women couldn’t be at the event: “They’re at home doing the laundry” and “at home taking care of the kids.”

Below is the list of Kasich’s staff in order by highest paid to lowest:

**  these numbers differ slightly from an earlier analysis we performed.  That analysis only covered the staffers that are directly paid by Kasich’s office.  Kasich, like many previous governors, employees many staffers who are paid by other state agencies.  The analysis above covers all of those employees.