Not too surprised at the attempt of this story to paint this as a gender issue when only taking into account the number of employees a Director manages. Dan asked me for my input last week and I wrote him the following that wasn't included in his story:

"Dan,
I wasn't able to get to the file before I left work tonight and I don't know what your deadline is, but at first blush from your comments about the pay delta between the genders of our Directors, I would provide the following feedback:
Leading a department is not all about people (and, from your comments in the email, it appears that's your main metric for the pay delta)
-The size and complexity of the budget should be another consideration
-The complexity of the technicality of the department being led as well as it's mission should also be another consideration
-The requirements for managing external working relationships with both local and national partners is another consideration
-The availability of other leaders with the skill sets needed for that particular job and the competitive nature of salary considerations will also play into how much the State might have to pay to get that level of skill set required for the job at the time of hire.
-The complexities of Department of Transportation are vastly different then those of the Dept of Administration. Both have different challenges that I would expect we would have to pay their Directors according to those challenges, expectations and skills/experience one brings to the table.
Without looking at your file, for me, these would be just some of my first considerations when looking at the pay differentials before making a judgement on if there are some department heads or division heads under/over paid. The above list is only a minimum criteria that I would use when building a matrix to then plug in the salaries required for each position... only then would I consider looking to see if the person filling that role was a man or woman. In my mind, gender is not a consideration when hiring for any of the leadership positions that the State has... the skill set one brings to the table and the availability/value of that skill set for the task at hand is what I'm paying for.
I understand what you are looking for and would suggest that you also take some of these thoughts into consideration before pulling the trigger on what your thoughts might be based on salary vs. gender alone...
Hope this helps. Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner, it's been a very long day.
Cheers,
Marv"

www.idahostatesman.com/2012/03/18/2040540/in-otter...t=pop
http://chumly.com/n/11bc62b