June 16, 2010 7:29am by David Farrar

Brown broke rules repeatedly

Earlier, it emerged that Mr Brown continued to break rules after being warned by senior staff to provide correct documentation when using his council credit card.

Finance director Dave Foster yesterday said he told Mr Brown about twice in the past year that he was not providing the correct documents with his card purchases.

Other senior staff had also raised the issue with the mayor.

But not much they can do when it is the Mayor – they can’t threaten to remove his card.

An Audit New Zealand-initiated probe of incomplete tax invoices has identified 25 cases among the council’s 172 credit card holders.

Of the 25 cases, 13 relate to Mr Brown, including an $810 dinner at Volare Restaurant in Manurewa that is also missing written documentation specifying the purpose of the dinner, who was present and giving an itemised breakdown.

So Len Brown represents 52% of undocumented credit card transactions at the Council, despite being just 0.6% of the card holders.

I can understand people initially being sloppy, but what does it say when you ignore your own senior staff’s warnings and requests that you are in breach of Council policy?