There has been a big jump in the number of Southern District Health Board employees who earn six-figure salaries.
The SDHB's recently released annual report showed 681 of the health board's 4655 employees earned more than $100,000 annually - up from 656 in 2017-18.
Of those, 17 earned more than $400,000 a year - the previous year 11 people were at the top tier of the organisation's pay scale.
The SDHB's top-earner takes home a salary of between $710,000 and $720,000 - the previous year's largest salary was between $560,000 and $570,000.
The report does not identify who that individual is, but chief executive Chris Fleming's "remuneration and other benefits, either paid or accrued, are in the band $520-$530,000," the report said.
The majority of the 681 employees earning more than $100,000 - 457 - were medical or dental employees.
Of the SDHB's 4655 employees, 78.4% are women and 21.6% men.
The ratio between the genders alters at senior levels of the work force - junior medical staff are almost at 50-50, while women make up 35.3% of the senior medical staff.
Just 12.4% of the SDHB's nurses are men, and 100% of midwives are women.
Overall, the SDHB's personnel costs were favourable to budget by $5.1million, due to several medical positions not being able to be filled.
The SDHB is governed by commissioners so does not pay board members.
The commissioners were paid a total of $268,000 in 2018 - down from $308,000 in 2017.
Commissioner Kathy Grant was paid $170,000 (up $10,000), deputy commissioner Graham Crombie received $55,000 ($90,000 in 2017) and fellow deputy commissioner Richard Thompson earned $43,000 ($54,000 in 2017).
The SDHB also had more staff who had their employment terminated or who took personal grievances against the board. Those employees received payments of $656,005.
In 2016-17 six fewer employees were in that category - just 15 - but they received payouts totalling $697,961.
The report showed the SDHB had two live litigation issues facing it.
One related to a workplace accident, and the other was a complaint filed with the human rights review tribunal.
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Comments
Pure greed,no wonder the SDHB is going down the toilet,is there anybody who can stop this.
A good gravy train for the lucky few to benefit from our taxes. As with all government entities, too many back-office/administration staff taking the micky from the front office staff and tax payers. That is the system- it probably needs to change.