DCC resignations cost $2 million

Laura McElhone.
Laura McElhone.
An exodus of staff from the Dunedin City Council's city property department under its former manager has fuelled a budget blowout of more than $2 million, it has been confirmed.

The department, which was mired in claims of bullying and poor performance under former manager Kevin Taylor, has been relying on consultants to fill vacant roles after a series of resignations.

On Friday, Mr Taylor's replacement, Laura McElhone, confirmed at least six vacancies had been plugged by bringing in consultants since she began her new role last year.

The extra cost meant the department's property costs budget was in the red by nearly $1.5 million, and the bill was still climbing, she said.

Complaints from building tenants about deferred maintenance had added another $609,000 to the bill.

That meant a combined budget blow-out of $2.107 million, and with more than three months of the financial year still to go, the figure would get worse, Dr McElhone said.

''It's not going to be less than $2 million. It's not going down,'' she said.

The department's problems emerged in March last year, when Deloitte was called in to scrutinise the department responsible for hundreds of
millions of dollars of ratepayer-owned property assets.

Mr Taylor, who was appointed to the role in September 2014, was initially replaced in the day-to-day running of the department, but resigned following the completion of the Deloitte review of the department last June.

Requests for a copy of Deloitte's final report have been repeatedly rebuffed since then, but former staff have described a culture of bullying and questionable performance under Mr Taylor.

Of 12 office staff in city property in 2015, eight had since left, mostly because of bullying and other problems within the department, one former staff member said.

Dr McElhone, asked if the problems scrutinised by Deloitte had led to the budget difficulties now being experienced, said the report had ''identified a number of areas of opportunity for improvement''.

''The work that we're doing now, and the resourcing, and the additional maintenance addresses some of those opportunities,'' Dr McElhone said.

The number of complaints about deferred maintenance was also ''reflective of us having not been performing as we would want to previously'', she said.

The ''high degree of turnover'' within the city property department was a ''significant contributing factor'' to the budget problems, she said.

It also meant other staff were being moved into roles for which they lacked appropriate skills.

A recruitment campaign has since boosted staff numbers to 16, and three more recruits would begin next month, she said.

However, four full-time consultants and one part-time consultant were still being used to plug critical skills gaps, and seven vacancies would remain after the latest new staff arrived, she said.

More staff would be recruited, but the situation was unlikely to be resolved before the end of the financial year, she said.

chris.morris@odt.co.nz

Comments

What a waste of rates. We should permanently slim down this DCC department and sell all non-core assets, reduce debt and rates. Never could understand why the DCC owns property in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland?

Start by selling all non-local properties- why should we support others towns outside Dunedin - let their ratepayers buy such assets! Then keep selling until only core assets are left - the DCC should not be a property speculator but provide essential community services eg. water/sewage, roads, paths, street lighting, building consents. All the other ‘nice to have properties’ related to; pools, libraries, stadiums etc., should be put to a binding referendum on whether ratepayers wish to keep them in DCC hands. Let us reduce rates and debt.

And I bet it is not just confined to that area,.

To Otagoideas, in what way is owning investment properties supporting the towns where those properties are? In fact it's just the opposite. The DCC is bringing the profits from properties in other cities back to Dunedin. You argument makes no sense at all.

Whether the DCC should own investment properties at all is another question altogether, regardless of where the property is located. Presumably any profits made from such properties goes to help keeps rates down for Dunedin ratepayers. In this case we should arguably have more investment properties, not less.

As to whether recreational and cultural assets are core assets to the city is a matter of opinion. I suspect most ratepayers would agree that parks, libraries and such are a fundamental part of a councils activity and are therefore core. Obviously not everyone is necessarily going to agree with that.

Those activities that are marginal activities, in my opinion, that could be done by other organisations probably include things like city marketing, visitor centre and even social housing. Personally I don't think these are core activities, but that's just my opinion.

The DCC should not have a property dept at all,consultants more money wasted.

 

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