WAGGA City Council general manager Alan Eldridge has said he is unable to guarantee the end of staff cuts after announcing 10 jobs will be cut by October.
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On Thursday morning, Mr Eldridge confirmed positions facing the chop would come from senior management and level three manager areas.
While he anticipated the losses would save council $1.5 million to $2 million annually, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of more cuts.
Councillors would review the restructure after 12 months and could propose changes, such as further job losses, Mr Eldridge said.
“No I can’t guarantee there will be no more staff cuts, [but] it’s not on the agenda,” he said.
“It would be difficult for a new council, in my view, to ask us to go through this all again, the stress on the staff would be very difficult.
“Nevertheless they do have the legitimate right under the act; the organisational structure is effectively approved by the council and should they make that decision we would have to respect that.”
The position losses are the result of council’s restructure, which involves the removal of five directors overseeing directorates.
Three of the five director positions are already vacant through staff leaving, and had been managed by interim directors, Mr Eldridge said. They will be replaced by four sectors, managed by four sector managers, he said.
New sectors will work in “clusters”, with managers required to “demonstrate a capability and a requirement for that capability”, Mr Eldridge said.
There were current negotiations with effected staff to see if they wanted to take redundancy, be redeployed. or apply for a newly created position.
“I don’t want to get into the specifics of individuals,” he said.
“However, wherever there is a spot within the organisation and that person can fit into that spot, that person can be given the opportunity to go and put an application in and be interviewed.”
Council’s four new organisational areas were commercial, financial, community and governance.
The change was made after six months of research and business reviews found council structure were not efficient, Mr Eldridge said.
“People can argue that there is enough evidence to demonstrate there was inefficiencies in the old structure,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I think what evolved over time, [was] that we really can’t afford with the budgeting constraints that we have these days,and of course with what people in the community expect from council.”
The new structure will be implemented by council from October 3.
