New Plymouth District Council chief executive Gareth Green. Photo: Taupō District Council / Supplied
New Plymouth District Council has disestablished 17 third-tier management positions as part of an ongoing restructure.
The NPDC shed a quarter of its senior management team earlier this year and has a goal of saving $10 million a year on staff and consulting costs.
Chief executive Gareth Green said the management of council working groups had been the more recent focus of the restructure.
"Previously that sat at around about 40 positions. Now they weren't all made redundant, but that third tier has been dropped down to 23."
He could not say how many people had lost their jobs.
"What I can say is there's been a number of redundancies in that process where we've had to unfortunately say good-bye to our friends and colleagues and then there's a number of people who've been redeployed."
Green said seven of the surviving working groups had been gone with a fine-tooth comb looking for efficiencies and the remaining 16 units would go through a similar process in the new year.
"We're going through each of those work groups and looking at efficiencies and looking at what we can do differently in those spaces."
He said the search for savings had been clearly signalled to staff and the community.
"Our goal in the draft long term plan is a minimum of a $10 million savings target to come out of the realignment process which will come partly from staff - unfortunately from reducing our full-time equivalent staff - and partly from reducing our other spend on consultants and the like."
Green said the new third-tier management structure - which included areas such as transportation, three waters, events and venues, and parks and reserves - had been operational since November.
An example of the consolidation was the units that had come together under the sustainability banner.
"So, that's the old climate change team, the refuse reduction team - so education around recycling etcetera - our education team around infrastructure - so around water use and the like - and our Let's Go team, the transport team.
"So, what we've done is merge those teams together into one - into a sustainability team."
The functions of those teams would continue but be streamlined, said Green.
"For example we'll try and have one person - multi-skilled - at schools doing education rather than having three or four NPDC cars at the school doing the same thing."
Green acknowledged it was a difficult time for council staff.
"It's always tough when you have to say good-bye to friends and colleagues and there have been a number of farewells over the few weeks and that is tough, that is really hard and that is a difficult thing to go through."
He said the teams going through the realignment process had been incredibly professional and open to finding new ways of doing things.
"But I won't sugar coat it it's been really, really tough on them as well. These are real people, they're good people, they are people in our community and this process will result in a reduced number of people in those teams."
New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom backed his chief executive's latest steps as part of the restructure.
He said Green was hired to make council more efficient, pragmatic, commercially focused and tighter fiscally.
The latest developments would not have come as a surprise to staff, he said.
"I think most people expected it and our goal is to just be really professional, do things quickly and work with the team, so that everybody knows what their options are and what's going on."
Holdom said there had been a mixed reaction among staff to the restructure, which was to be expected.
Councillor Max Brough - who got elected on a cost-cutting platform - worried the sacrifices made through the restructure would be squandered.
He appreciated what the chief executive was trying to achieve, but said some councillors were not on the same page.
"What I'm seeing is everyone is sticking their hands out because, hey, we're saving all this money and instead of having a rates-neutral year or coast along we're going to spend it somewhere else."
Brough said during draft long-term plan deliberations, one councillor after another had stood up and asked for money for their pet projects.
The restructure has been paused over the holiday period.
By the numbers
NPDC staff 2022/23
665
Salaries 2022/23
- Six staff, excluding the chief executive, paid between $200,000 and $319,999
- eight between $160,000 and $199,999
- 18 between $140,000 and $159,999
- 22 between $120,000 and $139,999
- 90 between $100,00 and $199,999
- 169 between $80,000 and $99,999
- 230 between $60,000 and $79,999
- 235 staff earned less than $60,000
Total wage bill 2022/23
$53.8 million