Police defend $28k spend on top cop’s office facelift
Police are standing by a top cop’s $14,000 spend at an upmarket interior design store.
The taxpayer-funded expenditure was for remodelling the office of Southern District commander Superintendent Paul Basham, who oversees Otago and Southland.
The 2017 purchases from Moi on George in Dunedin included a chair ($2604), a console ($3348), a desk ($2430), a ‘‘meeting leaner’’ ($1644), six stools ($1978) and a couch ($1040).
More than $1000 was spent the following year on lamps and a side table, according to a purchase list obtained by Stuff under the Official Information Act.
Basham spent at least $27,928 on his office and foyer following his arrival in the South in 2016.
Police are standing by the senior officer, who is currently on a six-month secondment at their Wellington headquarters.
Superintendent Mike Johnson, the acting assistant commissioner for districts, said in a statement that the spending was in line with police policy.
It had covered alterations and refurbishment and included new furniture, redecorating the walls with police-branded imagery and laying new carpet tiles.
The statement said: ‘‘These improvements changed the functionality of the workspace from a single-use office (unchanged from 1993) to a collaborative multipurpose workspace.’’
The space can hold meetings of up to eight people.
District commanders such as Basham are accountable for their budgets and are expected to operate ‘‘efficiently’’ in line with the the Public Finance Act and the Policing Act, Johnson said.
Basham is undertaking a sixmonth secondment as ‘‘Assistant Commissioner – Performance’’ based at the Police National Headquarters in Wellington, while Inspector Darryl Sweeney heads the district in his absence.
Basham referred requests to comment to Johnson when Stuff phoned to ask if he had spent public money appropriately.
A former sworn officer, who worked at Dunedin’s police station at the time, said the sight of an interior designer carrying fancy furnishings into the commander’s office was upsetting at a time when money was tight.
At least one manager was being urged at the time to tell staff to take annual leave on public holidays in order to save money, the source claimed.
(In response, Johnson said that while there were budget implications from staff holding large leave balances, ‘‘this is not the driver in why we encourage staff to take leave’’).
Moi on George, in Dunedin’s George St, and Moi St Clair in the south of the city, are run by mother-and-daughter Sandy Cubitt and Courtney Henderson.
Cubitt said she undertook interior design work on the office along with supplying the furnishings, but believed she had done the design work free of charge.
‘‘Personally, I don’t think it was lavish . . . The office, as it was, was absolutely terrible. I don’t think it’s a lot of money.’’
The $2600 chair was a leather armchair supplied for a lower price than she would normally charge, she said, though this was not because of any pre-existing relationship with Basham. ‘‘I’ve never mixed with him socially.’’
Johnson said there was no conflict of interest between the police staff involved and Moi on George.