Cleveland received 69 complaints under its pay transparency ordinance in the law’s first year; 44 were substantiated, and no fines were assessed, according to Signal Cleveland’s reporting. The ordinance requires covered employers to include salary ranges in job listings and bars questions about applicants’ salary history. Its first anniversary fell on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.
A late-year complaint surge followed an October 13 Pay Transparency Accountability Party at Councilman Tanmay Shah’s ward office in Cudell. Attendees reviewed hundreds of job postings and filed 34 formal complaints that day, according to Signal Cleveland. The event was sponsored by Shah’s office, the Northeast Ohio Worker Center, the Fair Employment Wage Board and the Pay Equity Alliance. Grace Heffernan said FirstEnergy accounted for about a third of the complaints filed at the party; the batch included both large companies and small employers that may not know the law’s requirements.
Who the City Can't Touch
Not every complaint has a path to resolution. Elfreda “Alfie” Walter, hired last spring to help oversee Cleveland's trio of worker protection laws, said the Fair Employment Wage Board could not review about one-third of the 69 complaints because they involved government employers outside the city's jurisdiction. MetroHealth and Cleveland State University represented the majority of those out-of-bounds complaints, per Walter's account, since MetroHealth is a county government institution not subject to the ordinance and Cleveland State falls outside its reach as well. More than half of the complaints that were within the wage board's authority have been resolved, Walter said.
The jurisdictional gap has fueled talk of expanding the concept countywide. The Fair Employment Wage Board is prioritizing similar pay transparency legislation moving through Cuyahoga County Council, the news organization reports. Dale Miller said the county should seriously consider similar countywide legislation, while Matt Ashton said county-level rules could address unfair competition concerns raised by businesses and nonprofits that worry about being undercut by employers not bound by the city law.
Compliance Over Fines, For Now
The ordinance allows fines of up to $5,000, but John Ryan said the wage board has emphasized getting employers into compliance rather than imposing penalties, helping explain why none were assessed in year one. The board has met with large employers and partnered with the Northeast Ohio Worker Center on worker outreach and Collaborate Cleveland on business outreach. Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals told Signal Cleveland they worked with the board to ensure their job postings include salary ranges. University Hospitals also said it wants public employers covered by the same rules. Shah said he would like the city to fine bad actors in the law’s second year and hopes to introduce a public dashboard to track progress and accept anonymous tips.
The city is also trying to widen awareness before year two begins. Cleveland plans to mail a pay transparency postcard to roughly 3,000 businesses next week, and by early 2027 it intends to give employers bidding on city contracts information on complying with all three of its worker protection laws — pay transparency, wage theft, and fair wage and living wage rules, which Mayor Justin Bibb's administration has backed. Those contract-related laws cover employers with a city contract worth at least $25,000 or at least $75,000 in financial assistance, and Cleveland can bar employers from future contracts over wage theft or paying below the city's $16.85-an-hour fair wage. The city has received two wage theft complaints, with one resolved in the worker's favor and one still pending, and it has not received any fair wage or living wage complaints.
A Wage Board Pulled Out of Dormancy
The Fair Employment Wage Board itself has an unusual backstory: it was created in 2001 but sat dormant for more than two decades before this enforcement push got underway, with complaints only opening up to the public starting in November 2025. Cleveland's living wage sat frozen at $10 an hour for nearly two decades before it was raised and now rises annually with inflation, the outlet notes.
How Cleveland revived the wage board
The Fair Employment Wage Board was established under Cleveland’s Fair Employment Law, also known as the living wage law. According to the City of Cleveland, the board was first formed in 2001 and revived in 2024.
On the employer side, the law appears to be reshaping hiring practices even without fines in play. Katie Soditch said pay transparency has helped her clients attract more qualified candidates, and HR professionals have been trained not to ask applicants about salary history, since most job sites and applicant tracking systems no longer require it. Melissa Henson said employers should review their compensation data and current employees' pay before posting salary ranges, to make sure the numbers hold up to scrutiny.
The Broader Pay Gap Backdrop
The ordinance's stated goals go beyond paperwork: it aims to improve job applicants' ability to negotiate higher salaries and to narrow wage gaps, particularly for women, Black and Latino workers. Nationally, women earned 80.6 cents for every dollar men earned in the first quarter of 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Northeast Ohio Worker Center was active in getting the ordinance passed in the first place.
Cleveland's version remains tougher than what's on the books elsewhere in Ohio, which has no statewide pay transparency law. Toledo and Cincinnati only require employers to share pay ranges upon request, and Cincinnati's law specifically applies after an applicant has already received a conditional job offer, according to the National Law Review. Columbus has gone a different route, enacting an ordinance that requires salary ranges in postings for employers with 15 or more city workers, but as Ogletree reports, that law's enforcement won't begin until January 1, 2027, even though it took effect in December 2025. Cleveland's own ordinance generally applies to employers with at least 15 workers in the city, a threshold confirmed separately by Critchfield, Critchfield & Johnston. Signal Cleveland, citing data from Brightmine, reports that nearly 30 cities nationwide now have some form of pay transparency law on the books.
