Deschutes County offices in Bend, Ore., on May 19, 2020.
Emily Cureton / OPB
Deschutes County settled a pay inequity and gender discrimination claim for $150,000 this month, according to records obtained by OPB.
Deputy district attorney Alison Filo first reached out to the county’s human resources department about issues she was seeing two years ago. She discovered the pay difference between her and her colleagues after District Attorney Steven Gunnels, who Filo praised, wanted to promote employee retention by examining how attorneys in the office were paid.
“I really believed that when I emailed (HR) in April of 2023, the response I was going to get was, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re so sorry. Let’s get this fixed!’”
Instead, Filo said, what happened was the most frustrating experience of her professional career as a prosecutor, which spans 25 years in California and then Deschutes County.
Filo said Deschutes County promised a memo justifying the pay discrepancy, but she never received it.
She set monthly alarms to email the HR department, seeking an answer, she said. It wasn’t until she hired outside legal representation, she said, that the county became responsive.
“I don’t trust HR to do anything” now, Filo said.
“I hate to say that about my own county,” she added, “but the way that I was treated and the amount of money that ended up costing the county because of it, it’s just shocking.”
Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang brought up Filo’s settlement Wednesday as the board discussed the recent dissolution of the county’s diversity, equity, inclusion and access committee. Chang said that group was needed to address personnel issues inside the county like Filo had faced.
Committee members had been slated to take up pay equity following a March 2024 audit that found pay disparity for workers of different genders and races. The county board’s conservative majority voted to terminate the committee before that could happen. Commissioners Tony DeBone and Patti Adair have said staff retention and pay equity are issues that would live with the human resources department.
Deschutes County commissioners dissolved the staff-led, internal work group focused on promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and access on February 5, 2025, citing the county is following a presidential order ending federal funding for DEI programs.
Illustration by Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Filo still works for the county. She said she’s called to being a prosecutor because of the passion she feels for crime victims. But she worries about the county’s ability to recruit lifetime prosecutors.
“If the county itself can’t figure out how to treat its people better,” Filo said, “that will be a problem across all departments, not just mine.”
Wednesday’s commission meeting drew a number of supporters for the disbanded DEIA committee, as well as some people who backed Commissioners DeBone and Adair’s decision to dismantle it.
The settlement between Filo and the county does not admit fault or wrongdoing. Deschutes County could not be immediately reached for comment.