The workforce at Central Coast Council will be slashed by 242 in the wake of its financial crisis, to return to the number of staff at the time of amalgamation.
Staff costs have risen by 43 percent since amalgamation, using a normalised cost of $154M as the starting base, while revenue has risen by only six percent, the Administrator, Dick Persson, stated in his interim 30-day report delivered to the public on December 2.
He also mentioned the “substantial costs” of $25M from an industrial dispute concerning 38/35-hour week negotiations as well as unifying the salary scale and harmonisation costs.
The nine directorates making up the senior leadership team has been reduced to five long term.
A sixth directorate is short term, which is Malcolm Ryan, who has been engaged short term as Chief Operating Officer to assist the interim Administrator and Acting CEO deal with issues such as improving processes and structures.
Council has earmarked $45M in its current budget for organisational restructuring costs including staff redundancies.
It then adds another $5M for the recruitment of critical or revenue generating positions.
Acting CEO, Rik Hart, proposed the new organisational structure and the Administrator, Dick Persson, adopted it at the November 30 meeting.
The revised Senior Staff Structure will consist of a director for water and sewer, community services, environment and planning, infrastructure, and corporate affairs.
The senior staff roles that no longer form part of the executive structure are the Director Governance, which is currently vacant, the executive manager People and Culture; executive manager Innovation and Futures; and the chief information officer, which is currently vacant.
It is unclear whether these four roles will be cut or simply demoted.
Persson flagged that the next level of management, the 37 unit managers, would also be substantially cut.
CEO, Rik Hart, has called a series of staff information sessions throughout the day on December 9 to include all staff, including those at work depots.
United Services Union representative, Luke Hutchinson, said he has had numerous meetings with the CEO about proposed workplace changes and staff levels.
“Discussions I’m having with Council are in relation to a voluntary redundancy program and to limit the loss of rank and file or operational jobs or essential workers, which I think would be disastrous for delivery of services on the Central Coast,” he said.
“The Union has been working with Council through all the staff changes and what we’re trying to achieve is that any of these changes don’t impact the community,” Hutchinson said.
Sue Murray and Merilyn Vale