Getting silly over expenses
July 26th, 2010 at 9:00 am by David FarrarAs every Council Mayor and CEO is having their credit card expenses OIAed, I am getting the feeling that the media seem to think a story must be written, even if nothing newsworthy. Take the Wgtn City Council CEO:
Wellington ratepayers have funded the drinks tab for Air New Zealand executives, motivational books and luxury accommodation – including a council boss’s two-night hotel bill of nearly $1200.
Wellington City Council chief executive Garry Poole – who was not available for comment as the council does “not think it’s necessary for him to actually have to defend such minor spending” – racked up $5940 in two years from July 2008 on his “purchase card”.
That’s an average of $250 a month.
Mr Poole’s two-night $1192.68 accommodation plus expenses tab was for The Heathman Hotel, in Portland, Oregon, described as luxury accommodation and named as one of the top 500 hotels in the world, by Travel + Leisure magazine.
Council spokesman Richard MacLean said US$250 a night was an acceptable amount to pay for accommodation, and was hampered by a “grotesque” exchange rate at the time.
“We do not expect our chief executive to stay in a backpackers in a rural suburb of Portland.”
US$250 a night is not an unreasonable tariff. I have stayed in US hotels that cost way more than that. Now sure, I paid my own way, but the point is that many US hotels costs this much.
July 26th, 2010 at 9:08 am
I agree DPF
Vote:This is making waves for the sake of doing so, unprofessional twaddle.
That the figures are available is a good thing perhaps but I doubt we have the UK experience.
I’d rather they implement your suggestion that all cheques/payments over $1000 are on the web per department.
July 26th, 2010 at 9:12 am
Do they not have any news they can report that they have to manufacture this pethetic twaddle?
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 9:16 am
I don’t give a fuck if the accomodation was free. My question is why do council staff or elected officials have to travel to the other side of the world for anyway? If they want to look at sewage systems or whatever then use the freaking internet. This guys 5 grand over two years is still the rates bill for some Wellington city rate payer for best part of two years.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Oh there’s plenty of news Murray, In their pride (with no common sense on the matter) they just feel that they are exercising power as the fourth estate over the pollies.
Meanwhile we are laughing at them because they are just repeaters and lazy, just like pollies who write law affecting us all but don’t deal to the problem or the offenders.
I am sure that there is a ton of stories out there but most of the are positive and they aren’t crisis’s or negative so won’t sell newspapers.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 9:50 am
This guys 5 grand over two years is still the rates bill for some Wellington city rate payer for best part of two years
Or in my case, the best part of four years.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Hotels in New Zealand cost more than that.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 10:01 am
$US 250 per night is perfectly reasonable for a decent room in a good hotel in a major US city.
Vote:It’s not like he was staying in one of the expensive, larger suites (where such rooms typically provide the luxury tag).
July 26th, 2010 at 10:10 am
There is a point to this exposure of expenses. Local Authorities (in the cities) have, rather than being service providers, morphed into big business. Elected representatives have become hostage to an executive class that has aquired for itself large salaries, benefits, and perks. (The collaboration between Len Brown and his CEO over unjustified expenses a classic case of ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch yours’). But Councils are not a business, in the sense that they do not have manage their spending relative to earnings, they just spend and spend and bill it to the ratepayers.
Vote:The Supercity concept is, in large part, a reaction to the massive growth in spending by Auckland cities; an attempt to bring extravagance under control. It is worth noting that the designers of the Supercity have found that salaries paid in the contributing cities were inflated and are expecting to pay much less for the same work.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:31 am
I know we are a small country and our public offficials need to get around a bit to see what is happening in the world, but it does seem to me that NZ public officials seem to like to travel extraordinarily long distances for seemigly little benefit.
In Australia public officials do travel from state to state a bit, but that needs to be well justified and on an occasional basis. International travel is seen as exception- perhaps something done for a special conference every 5-10 years.
NZ officials seem to be off every year. Haven’t they heard of internet conferencing and onine research?
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 11:11 am
“Council spokesman Richard MacLean said US$250 a night was an acceptable amount to pay for accommodation, and was hampered by a “grotesque” exchange rate at the time.
“We do not expect our chief executive to stay in a backpackers in a rural suburb of Portland.”
Bullshit, I recently stayed in a perfectly good hotel in downtown Portland for about a third of that.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
We often focus on these ratepayer/taxpayer overseas travel expenses and in response by way of justification the bureaucrats often say the trip was essential. and valuable, etc, etc.
But curiously, we rarely get to see the written reports that must surely be required when such expenditure is outlaid on overseas travel.
I think the public would be able to more fairly assess the value of these trips, rather than focusing on the dollar cost, by being able to read the traveler’s report about the trip.
A long long time ago, when I was 26 years old, my then Government employer sent me to England for a week-long course. I was just so grateful to have been given the opportunity and when I returned home I wrote a 26-page report so I could share with others what I learned, and also justify the faith my employers had in having sent me at all.
I suspect many trips by politicians and bureaucrats are never written up, or are perfunctory at best, a thousand words or less.
I say let’s see the reports that come out of these trips, then we will be able to determine if we are getting value for money.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
I think Trout is right on the button. Local bodies are not meant to have employees swaggering round earning big bucks and living like lords. They are there to provide essential services as cheaply and effectively as possible. Too many have got far too big for their boots and it is all at our expense and many of us can ill afford the grandiose schemes like stadiums, events centres etc etc.
My view is that if there’s no money in it probably council should be doing it for us; if there is money in it, there are plenty of companies on the look out for a good profit. CEO’s and mayors should stay home and think about ways to save us money!
he more publicity the better. I know much of it is trivial but this is our only way to bring it all back into perspective. My local body rates are getting ridiculous.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
PS And I love the ‘council spokesman’ saying ‘WE do not expect OUR CEO’… Is this another staff member?
Vote:I expect MY CEO to stay home and do the job we are paying him far too much for.
July 26th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
As toad says theres is a point. The most claringly obvious being that we never experienced any such degree of officals being exposed under the green support Clark regime.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
You never got this from the previous regime because it is the most pathetic drivvle I have ever read.
This whole personal expenses thing is a mix of venal political points scoring and lazy journalism. It allows the media to poke fun of people in the headlines ‘So-and-so watches pornography’ and lets the government (who initiated this circus) move a couple of ahead in the polls.
Sure this guy spent $5000 and that’s one year’s rates for a household but… there are 100,000 (or something) households in Wellington. The amounts we are talking about are truely piddling and would have probably been lost in the system anyway.
Twenty dollars for pornographic movies in a hotel. I just dont believe how pathetic this whole ‘expenses rort’ thing is.
Lazy Journalism, baseless political opportunism.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
The real issue is here:
“The expense was incurred on a week-long trip to Canada and the United States, when he and mayor Kerry Prendergast – who pays for her own expenses – were flown over to look at “new-generation aircraft” which could begin landing at Wellington Airport, largely at Air New Zealand’s expense.”
So why are the Mayor and CEO taking a week off from doing their actual jobs – presumably on pay – to look at some planes in the states? Are they really going to learn something useful by looking at planes that might one day land in Wellington (which probably look rather like the planes that currently land in Wellington)?
Are these two secretly aeronautical engineers or something? Or are they just going to be going”Gee whiz, they’ve got wings and engines and stuff… I guess they might need a runway to land on – perhaps the ariport should have one of those”.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
boredboy – you are a fucking idiot if you believe that the scale of theft from taxpayers/ratepayers has any effect on how wrong it is. These C.UNiTS are elected to be trusted with public funds, not to take the piss.
Sure, YOU may not give a shit if you are being robbed, dollar by dollar, cent by cent, but I sure as fuck do.
It’s only a little amount, there’s plenty more where that came from, it was only a porno, we really, really, really needed to check that the aeroplanes would fit out shitty little airport.
No, really, we had to go to Seattle to meet Mr Boeing and we measured his plane with our council tape measures to make sure the wingtips don’t knock down the new “Wellywood” sign upon landing… what? what do you mean the peasants dont want a sign?
Hell, I don’t even live in that miserable shit hole and it makes my blood boil. If he wants swanky I’m sure he gets paid plenty to do swanky, otherwise stick the prick in the TravelLodge with Alan Partridge.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Bullshit broedboy, we never got ANY degree of accoutnabilty because the left are dedicated toughers who lie cheat and conceal their activites as a matter of course.
Why don’t you stick up for taito Philip Fields while you’re at.
Idiot.
Vote:July 26th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
So, a well-padded junket. It makes me sick.
Vote:July 28th, 2010 at 5:05 am
Sorry, I have to disagree. Maybe a stay anywhere palatable in Manhattan or DC would cost that much, but not in freaking Portland.
You can get a perfectly decent room at a Motel 6 for around $50US, including tax. While perhaps you’d want to stay somewhere a little better than that, I wouldn’t think a room at a standard hotel should cost more than $100 in a flyover state like Oregon. Going posh was an unnecessary waste.
Vote: