The Deschutes County Courthouse.

An employee from the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office has accused Deschutes County of perpetuating gender discrimination and pay inequality under former District Attorney John Hummel, discrimination she says is systemic throughout county government.

These allegations were brought forward by Deputy District Attorney Alison Filo, whose attorney said in a June 10 letter they will sue the county unless the alleged discrimination is rectified.

Filo discovered last year she was being paid less than male co-workers with comparable experience.

Filo, who had more than 20 years of experience as a prosecutor in California’s Santa Clara County when she was hired in 2020, found out about the pay discrepancy when attorney classifications were re-evaluated under the new district attorney, Steve Gunnels. Gunnels was elected in 2022 after Hummel declined to run for reelection after eight years in office.

When Filo found out about the discrepancy, she immediately went to her co-workers looking for an explanation, but she was met with confusion. For many of the women in the office, her discovery was nothing new, she said.

“I remember going in and saying, ‘I’m being paid less than the two people who have the closest level of experience to me.’ People looked at me and said, ‘Well that’s because you’re a woman.’ It was like this secret that everybody in the office knew except me,” Filo told The Bulletin in an interview.

After almost a year of trying to get more information from the county’s human resources department, Filo is exploring legal options. On June 10, Filo’s lawyer, Michelle Littlewood, sent the county a notice of the intent to sue unless Filo’s pay is immediately rectified.

Kimberly Riley, legal counsel for the county, said the county “denies any discriminatory conduct on the part of the County and any of its officials/employees as alleged by Ms. Filo and further denies that there is a systemic pay equity issue based on gender at Deschutes County.”

Interview process

Filo has had months to reevaluate her experiences within the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office, and the more she found out, the more she came to believe the alleged discrimination began before she was even hired.

“It just became so clear to me that it wasn’t just pay grade. It was an entire movement about how male candidates were hired versus me. I mean, one of them was hired in a bar,” Filo said, referencing documents she obtained through a public information request.

Filo, unlike the male candidate hired six months before her, underwent two interviews with Hummel and a panel of county employees only to be rejected in favor of a male applicant with 18 fewer years of experience. After a third interview, she was hired for another position shortly thereafter.

Filo confirmed through hiring documents that she was offered a salary two tiers lower than male applicants with the similar experience. Emails procured by Filo also show Hummel would personally advocate for male candidates to receive higher salary offers while he left Filo’s paperwork to his executive assistant.

Hummel denied any claims he treated male and female candidates differently. He also said that he advocated for higher pay with human resources for both male and female candidates.

“Any allegation that I had different interview standards for male and female attorneys is false and ridiculous,” Hummel told The Bulletin over email when asked about the allegations. “Whenever I suspected pay inequity, I advocated for HR and the board of commissioners to rectify it.”

A confusing point system

While Hummel acknowledged he could advocate for an employee to receive higher pay, he also asserts he had little influence over how salaries were awarded by human resources.

“The County Human Resources Department, and the Board of County Commissioners, authorize the pay for district attorney employees. I created a scoring rubric for human resources to use to assess the experience of attorneys I proposed hiring, so that the experience of each potential hire would be judged objectively,” Hummel said.

Filo, however, said the scoring rubric has only served as a way to perpetuate the system of gender inequality through manipulating the scores of male and female employees. Scores collected from human resources show attributes from Filo’s resume, such as her four years of civil law experience, were ignored when calculating her score whereas male candidates had those same experiences applied to their advantage.

“The County ultimately corrected the error … however, Ms. Filo was not upgraded on the attorney step scale and she remained at the same compensation level even after the error was discovered,” Littlewood said.

Filo has still not received a clear explanation about how the county’s point system is calculated. She has contacted the director of human resources, Katheleen Hinman, several times and has been “stonewalled” at every corner, she said.

“It took a month for them to even respond with, ‘We’ll get you a memo that explains everything,’ and then there’s no memo…I set up a meeting. Meeting canceled. I did a public records request to try to get at least some information, and that’s when I really saw the behind the scenes discrimination (and) the personal emails from John Hummel,” Filo said.

The cascading effects of pay inequity

Filo is demanding that the county make an immediate correction to her pay, issue back pay calculated to the beginning of her employment, reimburse attorney fees and grant $350,000 for emotional distress. Littlewood said these demands are reflective of the damage such discrimination wreaks on a woman’s career.

“When these women start behind the ball because of the mere fact that they’re women, they cannot catch up over the years because they are always starting behind. If you really are going to make somebody whole you have to not just pay whatever the difference in salary would be, you have to correct their retirement. You have to pay interest. Then, you have to make some sort of showing that you’re trying to correct the bad behavior,” Littlewood said.

Filo said she knows of at least four other women who said they also faced discriminatory treatment. Many have already departed the office as a result of the discrimination, Filo added.

“I’m at a later stage of my career. If you’re 31 years old and you have a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old at home, and you still have to go to work every day with that boss … I just would have quit. And that’s what they all did. That’s unfortunately the position they were put in,” Filo said.

District attorney’s response

When Filo first discovered the pay discrepancy, she immediately approached Gunnels, the current district attorney, about the issue. He reviewed the pay calculations and agreed that Filo was not being fairly compensated commensurate with her experience.

“I believe Alison Filo’s complaint has merit, and I’m confident the county is working to resolve the issue” Gunnels told The Bulletin. “I believe Ms. Filo was hired at a rate that was not appropriate for her experience and her qualifications.”

Throughout this process, Gunnels has also reached out to human resources on Filo’s behalf seeking information and advocating for a higher pay evaluation. Emails show his requests to fix the discrepancy were also repeatedly dismissed.

Filo and Littlewood haven’t eliminated the possibility of litigation, but are working first to resolve the matter without a lawsuit.

“I think that in 2024 there has to be gender neutrality. We have outstanding women lawyers, sheriffs and maintenance workers,” Filo said. “Justice has to be blind. I want, more than anything, for systemic gender discrimination within Deschutes County to stop.”