Invoices altered in DHB-Chiefs deal

‘‘This sort of thing happens, as I’ve explained to you, all the time . . . It’s not uncommon.’’

Mary Anne Gill

Former DHB communications director

A former Waikato Health Board staffer turned board member had invoices altered in a failed sports team deal after another health official pointed out ‘‘sponsorship’’ of a certain amount of money required CEO sign-off.

Emails obtained under the Official Information Act also reveal hospital accountants are still not sure where half of the $50,000 came from for the 2013 deal with the Chiefs that was struck by former DHB communications director Mary Anne Gill.

The emails show the $200,000 contract Gill put together was for the Chiefs rugby franchise to be the face of WaiKids, a brand that integrates all children and youth health services at the hospital.

The contract was negotiated and signed off by Gill, even though she lacked authority to do so.

A concerned staff member who found the contract brought it to the attention of then chief executive Craig Climo, who acted to cancel it.

Gill, who resigned in 2015 and is now an elected health board member, was advised by another hospital staffer when two Chiefs invoices for $25,000 each landed that sponsorship deals between $40,000 and $100,000 had to be signed off by the chief executive.

The staffer had earlier in the email noted that the invoice ‘‘may be misdescribed, I think there may be a contract with the Chiefs for services which they will provide for Y Kids [sic]’’.

The emails show that Gill then told the staffer that it wasn’t a sponsorship deal, even though the Chiefs invoices stated that it was.

Gill then emailed the Chiefs marketing manager and asked for the invoices to be resubmitted, changing the wording from ‘‘sponsorship’’ to ‘‘public health, recruitment and WaiKids community messaging’’.

When questioned about the deal this month, Gill said there was nothing untoward about her handling of it and the new wording aligned the invoices with the contract.

Gill had split the money owed between departmental budgets. One invoice was paid out of her own communications ‘‘sponsorship’’ budget and the other $25,000 payment could not be traced by DHB accountants.

Gill said splitting the costs so it came under $25,000 in each department was not to avoid taking it to the chief executive.

She said in health promotions, the money is paid out of the benefiting department’s promotion budget.

‘‘This sort of thing happens, as I’ve explained to you, all the time . . . It’s not uncommon,’’ she said.

‘‘It was never a case of me trying to do something that I shouldn’t be able to do because I would never have done that. You have your own accountant assigned to you, the agreement was checked out legally.’’

Gill said the missing payment came from the Population Health department, but didn’t know which budget it had come out of.

Asked why it was paid out of the communication department’s sponsorship budget, Gill said that was an accounting issue and that the contract wasn’t a sponsorship deal, it was an agreement.

‘‘For me, it was like a holding account. If I didn’t know what the responsibility code was or the details of the contract didn’t come through yet, I’d code it to that in the interim and then we would do a tidy-up.’’

Gill said in contracts of this nature, if the code were not known at the time, it would be coded to her department and then she would sit with the accountant later on to tidy the accounts up.

Gill didn’t know why the tidy-up had not occurred and said it was an issue for the accountants.

The $200,000 deal was eventually cancelled by the DHB chief executive after the $50,000 was paid.

Waikato DHB executive director public and organisational affairs Lydia Aydon said staff could not find what account the second $25,000 payment came from.

The email trail shows negotiations with the Chiefs began in November 2012 and involved former chief operating officer Jan Adams and the then general manager of human resources, Fiona McCarthy.

However, Climo and others on the DHB executive were unaware, Climo has said.

Gill was asked at the time in an email from DHB staffer Kathy Jenkins who from the executive knew. Gill replied that most of the executive did.

Gill can no longer recall who knew of the contract outside of the two involved in the email trail.

‘‘I don’t know, certainly the ones in the email,’’ Gill said.

‘‘I can say quite categorically it was not a case of we’re trying to hide. In fact, if you look back, there were media releases put out, there was stuff on the intranet ... It wasn’t as if we were keeping it a secret.’’

Waikato DHB executive director of corporate services Maureen Chrystall said no disciplinary action was taken against Gill at the time.

‘‘Craig Climo, the CEO at the time, believed that Mary Anne Gill saw the contract as sitting outside of the usual DHB budget and she believed that it fell within a health promotion budget,’’ she said.

‘‘Climo was not involved in the development of the contract, but was part of the decision to terminate it.’’

Waikato DHB chair Bob Simcock said there was no reason to question Gill’s actions in relation to the Chiefs contract.

‘‘As previously stated by the chief executive at the time, Craig Climo: ‘some of the funds were specifically allocated from the Ministry of Health for health promotion and therefore could only be used for health promotion activities, not on surgical procedures or other non-health promotional services. The arrangement with the Chiefs was a contract for service with specific service requirements, not sponsorship,’’ Simcock said.

‘‘This issue is not relevant to Mary Anne Gill’s membership of the Waikato DHB Board. She had ceased to be an employee well before she stood for election. Since the election, she has made a positive contribution to the board and is an interested, well-engaged board member.’’

Gill was elected on to the board in 2016.