A while ago I posted about the lack of women in top leadership positions in the City of Madison. And the trend continues. Yesterday the Mayor announced his intention to name Enis Ragland as the Interim Director of the Office of Community Services replacing 30 year veteran Dorothy Conniff. Out of about 31 positions, that only leaves the following women leading departments:
- Library: Barbara Dimick
- Clerk’s Office: Maribeth Witzel-Behl
- Department of Civil Rights: Lucia Nunez
- Fire Department: Debra Amesqua
- Senior Center: Christine Beatty
That’s 19% of the top leadership positions in Madison. Most of the recent recent positions have gone to or are recommended to go to men except the City Clerk and Department of Civil Rights – thats 2 out of 11 or 18%:
- Overture Center President: Tom Carto
- City Assessor: Mark Hanson
- Interim Water Utility Director: Larry Nelson
- Metro Transit General Manager: Charles Camp (formerly Catherine Debo)
- Public Health Director: Dr. Thomas Schlenker (formerly Kate Vedder)
- Inspection Unit: George Hank (formerly Linda Grubb)
- Office of Business Resources: Matthew Mikolajewski (formerly Katherine Naherny)
- Office of Community Services: Enis Ragland (formerly Dorothy Conniff)
- Human Resources: Brad Wirth (Interim was Roger Goodwin but permanent position was held by a woman)
We have some opportunities to change this with openings in Parks, Water Utility, Economic & Community Development and City Treasurer. The last two of those positions which have been open for quite some time. I hope they are making efforts to recruit women to some of these positions.
To add insult to injury, I’m kind of appalled that after 30 years Dorothy Conniff was making $90,000 but Enis Ragland will be doing the same job with only 16 years experience with the City of Madison and no where near the expertise in childcare issues that Dorothy Conniff had and he will be making $102,000.
