I would expect anyone in a professional position to be receiving whatever the going market rate is.. which will likely not correlate to a chain of progressively higher pay as you go up the local hierarchy.

This, at least has been the case for each of the SMBs that I've worked in which managers are purely non-technical and hired for their ability to manage people and projects (can't afford to not have Engineers doing engineering).

At one place, my direct sup was expected to wear both the manager and Engineer hat (being technical). The next two layers up were middle managers who only managed. Neither layer made more than anyone in engineering.