$100k difference in pay, is this ridiculous? [CA]

Obligatory sorry for formatting I’m on mobile.

I’m a branch level HR manager and I’m bashing heads with the Sales Manager at my job. I want some outside perspective before I go over him.

So, backstory. We hired an outside sales guy, Tom(not real name), in 2024 at $90k + variable comp. He sticks around for a year and a half, then leaves about 6 months ago for more money elsewhere. His territories are covered by the other outside sales people. Business has been slow, so we decided to hold off on backfilling this specific position.

Fast forward to now, Sales Manager tells me we are giving Tom a job offer next Wednesday. We have a position open for a different territory, so I asked if that’s the role Tom would be filling. Nope! We’re putting him back in his prior position. (Never told me he was looking for candidates for that role?) Ok, so I ask for some details: salary, variable comp, etc.

He tells me we’re going to pay Tom $130k base, with up to $20k variable comp, with his first two years guaranteed 100% variable comp. So, essentially, we are guaranteeing this guy $150k for two years. Never mind that this is already $60k above what he was making before for the same job, it’s also $40k above our top performer, and (respectfully) Tom did not perform nearly as well they do.

Additionally, and what I’m most concerned about, is that this is $100k over what our lowest paid outside sales EE makes, who also happens to be our longest tenured sales person and a woman. I asked if we plan on bumping up everyone else’s salary, and get a very terse, “no, why would we do that?” Maybe because people talk and when they find out the fresh blood is pulling orders of magnitude more than they are they’ll probably just jump ship like he did?? And potentially multiple wage discrimination claims? I basically got some huffy, “well take it up with the GM and Regional GM because they both approved it.” And felt like I was getting told to piss off.

I confirmed that both the Regional and branch GM agreed that this was the way to go(I was in none of the discussions about it). But I can’t help but feel like this is a wildly vast gap between our employees comps. So, fellow HR professionals, am I overreacting or should I try to push this up the ladder more?

TLDR; New hire going to be making $40k above our top performer and $100k over our lowest paid employee (also good performance). I don’t think this is a good idea but the powers that be at my branch don’t have an issue with it.