Port board chair defends $46,000 Christmas party

Cayman’s Port Authority board chair Cline Glidden defended spending nearly $46,000 on a 2023 Christmas party for employees, describing it as showing appreciation for staff who work long hours under “dangerous conditions” to clear goods for the island.

He was answering questions at a Public Accounts Committee meeting on Thursday.

That expenditure, as well as the $56,000 spent for a 2022 party, was deemed excessive by the auditor general in her report – ‘Financial Reporting of the Cayman Islands Government: General Report 31 December 2023’.

Glidden, however, said the board did not see it that way.

“We think that while it may seem excessive, or while it was deemed excessive as a Port Authority, we felt comfortable that we weren’t breaking laws,” Glidden said, as he responded to questioning from PAC member Barbara Conolly.

The civil service recommendation is substantially less, at $40 per person for a Christmas stipend.

However, Glidden said the board felt the recommendation “was not sufficient for us to be able to do what we felt was pragmatic and practical for the staff of the Port Authority”.

Glidden, in a further comment to the Cayman Compass on Friday on the issue, explained that the Port Authority has around 180 staff.

“So when you add a spouse or significant other it’s 360 people. Decent dinner, drinks, venue with music and entertainment at $121 per person isn’t excessive as an appreciation for hard working dedicated staff,” he said.

‘Hardworking staff’

He told PAC the board followed the regulatory and legal requirements to approve the expenditure.

The board decided that the Port Authority staff had worked hard and done such a good job “under difficult conditions” that they wanted to recognise their efforts. Glidden added that they wanted that recognition to reflect that “hard work, and the fact that they were also away from their family for extended periods of time”.

The board wanted to host a function that the staff could bring along their families to, he said.

“The Port Authority and its board of directors takes very seriously its responsibility to always act in the best interests of the board,” Glidden said, adding that they “sincerely gave consideration to the long, hardworking hours and dangerous conditions that the Port Authority staff [faces] on an ongoing basis”, when planning the event.

The staff, he said, work to ensure that some 97% to 98% of all goods that are imported to the island are processed “in a safe and reliable manner that involves dangerous work”.

Conolly asked Glidden if the port will be spending similar amounts at every Christmas party.

He responded that would depend on the financial position of the Port Authority.

“So if the Port Authority is in a good financial position, we wanted to make sure that the staff who contributed to that position were shown appreciation.”

But, he said that if the they couldn’t afford to put on a party or if it would pose “operational challenges” for the authority, “we would have to do something different”.

When asked about the total expenditure for 2024, Glidden said he did not have that figure, but added he would provide it to the Auditor General’s Office.

Speaking to the continuing challenge of overtime pay at the port, Glidden said he shared Port Director Paul Hurlston’s undertaking that there needs to be a clear policy and that contracts should be reviewed to ensure they reflect what is actually being paid.

Hurlston, who also appeared before the PAC earlier in the morning, said contracts were not updated for workers over the years as the shift system changed, making that difficult to do.

He said workers on day and night shifts were being paid differently.

The night-time workers were being paid at a higher rate, which worked out to time-and-a-half, he said.

He added he would review the shift pay rates and take a policy to the board for approval to regularise workers’ contracts.