Would you pay an employee $140,000 a year to sell event tickets?

That’s what BC Hydro did for the 2010 Olympic Games when they seconded a senior manager to be a “Ticketing Representative” for $11,637 per month for three months, according to documents obtained exclusively by 24 hours through a Freedom Of Information request.

Another seconded BC Hydro employee making $137,916 a year worked as a “Supervisor, Event Services” for the Vancouver Olympics and a third making $127,296 annually was “Manager, Transportation Facilities”.

In total BC Hydro seconded 67 employees making between $21.64 an hour and $12,084 a month for up to five months at a cost of at least $2,487,000. Sixteen of the 67 make over $100,000 each at BC Hydro.

NDP MLA John Horgan called the high-priced Hydro help “outrageous”.

“It’s outrageous that they would be paying $12,000 a month for a ticket representative,” Horgan, NDP energy critic. “It seems to be a misuse of BC Hydro expertise.”

Horgan also questioned how well paid BC Hydro senior managers could be seconded for extended periods of time.

“If they were expendable then, what are they doing now?” Horgan asked.

The highest paid seconded employee – at $145,000 a year – was a “Principal Engineer” who served as VANOC “Energy Director” – for nearly five years, from September 2005 to April 2010.

The value of that donated time alone exceeds $675,000.

Other senior managers also appeared to be doing “joe jobs” well below their expertise, according to the FOI.

A BC Hydro “Project Manager” paid $119,000 a year was seconded to VANOC to be a “Fleet Coordinator”, as was an “Energy Manager” making $115,000 a year and a “Senior Environmental Coordinator” making $89,000 annually.

A BC Hydro representative declined comment, instead referring 24 hours to the provincial government. Calls to the ministry of finance and BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat were not returned by deadline.

Some of the seconded BC Hydro employees doing what appears to be the same job had widely varying rates of pay. In addition to the $140,000 a year manager there were other employees working as “Ticketing Representatives” who were paid $56,556 and $53,352 a year.

Other BC Hydro seconded managers appear to have been doing Olympic jobs similar to their own, with “Project Manager 2” serving as “Venue Energy Manager” for the games at $111,000 a year – but for two and a half years.

Bill Tieleman writes for The Tyee and 24 Hours Vancouver.