The Dunedin City Council has negotiated confidential settlements with employees at a rate of about five or six a year.
The Otago Daily Times asked the council about non-disclosure agreements, legal fees and personal grievances.
There were 11 settlements with confidentiality clauses in the 2019-20 financial year, six in 2020-21, five in 2021-22, six in 2022-23 and four in 2023-24, the council said.
One personal grievance claim occurred in each of the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years.
The council declined parts of a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) request, including about legal costs relating to non-disclosure agreements.
Substantial collation or research would have been required to differentiate those costs, a spokeswoman said.
"To provide this information would involve undertaking a review of invoices over the five-year period to determine those costs relating specifically to employment-related confidentiality."
Information about severance pay is provided in council annual reports.
Five severance payments were made in the 2020-21 financial year, adding up to $100,904, including one payment of $68,886, the council said.
The total was $44,111 the following year, from two payments, and then $151,610 from five payments in 2022-23, including a payment of $69,422, and in 2023-24 the total was $51,711 from three payments.
Council annual reports had slightly different figures for 2019-20, with six severance payments adding up to either $96,900 or $99,975.
The higher figure was from the 2021 annual report, which included figures for the previous financial year.
The council released some information about legal fees in response to the LGOIMA request, disclosing total fees from law firm Anderson Lloyd.
They were more than $1.5 million in 2019-20, over $1m in each of the next three financial years and almost $900,000 in 2023-24.
The council declined to state what proportion in each year related to employment matters, saying it could not differentiate this without significant further research.
In 2017, the council adjusted its policy about confidential employment settlements from council-owned companies.
The council directed Dunedin City Holdings Ltd to "limit any confidentiality arrangements in employment situations within its subsidiary and associate companies, such that they don’t prohibit the flow of information back to the shareholder".
This followed controversy about an almost $1m payout to former Delta chief executive Grady Cameron, who left amid criticism of failure to ensure Aurora Energy’s electricity network was properly maintained.
