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A victim of an alleged bully at Auckland Council is “disgusted” their former manager has been reappointed to a part-time job paying up to $300,000 over three years.
The new, three-year contract is on top of the $242,755 the woman has already earned in the council-paid job since 2020.
The woman left the council in late 2019 after three formal allegations of bullying and unreasonable behaviour over a four-year period were mostly upheld.
In a statement, the council’s governance director Anna Bray said the woman was appointed to her role in mid-2020, and again this year following a fair and impartial process.
“This is essentially a contract role with no people management responsibilities and a system in place to manage any required escalation,” Bray said.
Victims who alleged they were bullied by the woman told the Herald they were surprised at the council’s decision to keep her on with a lucrative contract.
“I’m disgusted that they keep giving this person contracts … it’s like she got away with it and yet people like me have to live with the after-effects her behaviour had on me.
“I became really sick and took 10 months off working because I couldn’t go back to the workforce because I was so traumatised,” claimed one alleged bullying victim, who is still on medication for depression and anxiety five years after leaving the council.
Acting Auckland Council chief executive Phil Wilson previously investigated claims of bullying by the former council manager. Photo / Dean Purcell
A second alleged victim said it was sad to see Auckland Council continue to hire people who have an alleged record of bullying.
And a former senior council staffer, who provided support to staff “who came to me in tears because of her awful behaviour”, she believed there is something “grimy going on with what amounts to a guaranteed tenure”.
Another alleged bullying victim, a junior staffer, told the Herald in 2021 she worked with some amazing people at the council but described the woman manager as having what she believed was a “bullying attitude” and claimed she screamed at her during mediation.
“I had been a confident successful woman and at the end of mediation with her, I just came out totally shattered and with the money I had saved for my retirement I used that to live on because I couldn’t work for two and a half years,” the alleged victim said.
Bray said the woman was not an employee of Auckland Council and only worked with one team at the council. The role did not require interactions with staff in the wider organisation, she said.
She said the $300,000 contract figure was the maximum figure for the woman’s role. The work involves between 75 and 100 hours per month at the rate of $78 per hour, which is expected to work out between $240,000 and $280,000 over three years.
Wilson, who handled the investigations into the allegations of bullying by the woman when he was governance director, previously told the Herald the allegations “were mostly upheld and the appropriate action was taken as a consequence”.
“We do not speak about any individual employees’, or former employees, situations,” Bray said.
Bernard Orsman is an Auckland-based reporter who has been covering local government and transport since 1998. He joined the Herald in 1990 and worked in the parliamentary press gallery for six years.
