Health boss spent six months in one year travelling on taxpayers
Chief executive spent 338 days travelling during 3 years on DHB
Aformer health boss on a $560,000-a-year salary spent more than half his final year out of the office on overseas and domestic trips, expense claims show.
Waikato District Health Board chief executive Dr Nigel Murray, who resigned last month over unauthorised expenses and overspending, spent 183 days travelling in 2016/17 — leaving him 182 days, including weekends, to do his job in Hamilton.
The cost of his expenses for that year, including flights, accommodation, meals, taxis and parking, was $91,506 — and included hiring a car for a month in Canada two days before he left North America.
Murray spent 338 days travelling during the three years he was chief executive.
The fresh revelations are in figures obtained by the Weekend Herald under the Official Information Act, and raise further questions as to how Murray’s spending of public money went on so long. That is now the subject of a State Services Commission inquiry.
The figures also show the board spent $145,360 investigating Murray’s expenses, while paying him $148,521 to be on leave.
The investigation costs included almost $55,000 for an Auckland lawyer to carry out the independent inquiry, $33,585 for external legal advice and $10,889 spent on public relations.
After Murray’s resignation, the DHB released receipts for his three years’ worth of expenses, showing Murray spent $218,000 since he took up the role in July 2014.
In the last financial year he spent a total of 40 days travelling internationally, including three trips to the United States and Canada that the DHB has now invoiced to Murray.
It’s understood they were not authorised trips.
Murray was on one of those trips, to Canada, which he listed as “professional development and completion of research project” in his expenses, when the Herald revealed on December 1 last year that he had not disclosed two years of expenses.
Annual disclosure is required by the State Services Commissioner.
An earlier trip that year, on October 18 to 24, took in Los Angeles, New York, Montreal and Moncton.
During that visit to Moncton, a city the size of Rotorua in New Brunswick, Canada, Murray hired a rental car for a month at a cost of $1193.
Receipts show he hired the car on October 22, two days before he left North America. The rental ended on November 20, six days before he returned to Canada for the third trip.
It’s unclear what business Murray had in those destinations. Two weeks after he resigned, ending the DHB investigation into his expenses, the Herald revealed the findings were understood to show expenses linked with two Canadian women.
In the last year, Murray was travelling domestically for 143 days. This included five trips where staff queried the purpose of travel such as an eightday stay in Auckland at a cost of $1571, and a one-way airfare from Wellington to Hamilton costing $300.
Three other stays in Auckland in February, March and April this year totalling 12 days and $4507 were also queried.
In his first year, Murray’s international travel amounted to 23 days.
The cost of a 13-day trip to the United States to visit American company HealthTap near San Francisco was initially disclosed as $8929 in expenses filed by the DHB in January this year.
When the expenses were released again this month, the $8929 was amended to $1488. Receipts show Murray went to Canada for seven days during the visit.
Domestically, Murray’s time away from Waikato DHB grew substantially each year.
In the 2014/15 year he totalled 45 days away from Hamilton, including travelling to Wellington twice at a cost of $877 to be involved in the recruitment for a senior role.
The next year his domestic travel grew to 69 days and included several trips to promote SmartHealth, the DHB’s virtual health app powered by HealthTap.
That same year, in 2015/16, Murray’s international travel added up to 18 days including three trips to HealthTap costing taxpayers $20,488.
By comparison, Murray’s predecessor Craig Climo did not travel internationally in his final 18 months.
In the six months before that Climo went to one three-day conference in Australia at a cost of $3347. In his final year Climo travelled domestically for a total of 25 days.
Board chairman Bob Simcock said: “I would expect the chief executive to spend his time in the most productive way for the DHB. Nigel Murray resigned as a result of unauthorised and unjustified expenditure on travel.”
Simcock said it was essential for the DHB to carry out a thorough and fair investigation.
The State Services Commission expects to deliver a draft report in the New Year.