‘Tough decisions’: Timaru mayor backs CE’s massive restructure plans

Tuesday, 25 March 2025

A proposal to cut 71 roles at the Timaru District Council has the support of the mayor who has been focused on trying to rein in his council’s spending, but union organisers oppose it and say staff are “very upset” and surprised by its scale.

Council chief executive Nigel Trainor announced the proposal, which affects roles across the organisation from the senior leadership team to frontline customer services staff, on Monday.

“I’m proposing there will be 71 positions affected, and there will be another 19 going back in with a job that looks different to what they’ve currently got … and so that will be a net proposal of 52 positions being disestablished.”

The council has a staff of 316.7 FTE (full-time equivalent), plus an unspecified number of vacant positions. It is yet to share a copy of the proposal, but has confirmed some of the roles that may be cut are vacant.

Asked how staff had taken the news, Trainor said “shock” would be the word to describe the reaction.

“… it was quite silent … particularly with the size of it, the size of what we are having to do.”

Following the announcement, the council closed its front offices for the remainder of Monday.

Trainor said the total saving of the proposed cuts was between $3.5 million and $4 million a year.

“I think we are in for a month or two of having stressed staff, in terms of their future, so I’d like the community to bear with them.

“We’re working hard to try and get the organisation in a much better financial position without too higher rates burdens.”

He said the council had been working on its Annual Plan, and through that work it had become clear further savings were needed.

“Through that process it has become very clear that we have a hard-core operating deficit.”

Trainor said if the council went with a 12% rate increase for the 25/26 year, the operating deficit would still be about $9.8m.

“That operating deficit is quite hard-core and we’ve got to … bring it down.”

He said he had been working on the proposal for about three to four weeks.

“It is a proposal written by me, and it is what I see. Obviously staff now have an opportunity to put in their submissions and that could change.”

The proposed changes are the first made by Trainor since he started in the role in December 2023 and he said he hoped it “will be the last time too”.

“The proposal I’m putting forward is to flatten the structure. It is a leaner management structure, it does also affect some people that are delivering services to the community.

“I want to do it once, in my term as CE, and I want to get it right. Effectively, if we can do this really well and get this organisation right-sized, then we shouldn’t have to do it again.”

Trainor said the council was working with the Public Service Association, which had a delegate on-site at the council on Monday.

PSA organiser Kali Mulrine said the union has 304 members on the council staff who are loyal to the council and community.

“The staff are very upset and very surprised at the scale of the restructure. The proposal cuts jobs from most areas of the council, from team leaders to administrators to librarians.

“… many whose jobs are at risk are long-term council employees.”

“The PSA is very concerned about what the proposal would mean for both the significant number of people proposed to be made redundant, and the staff who would remain.

“We strongly oppose the redundancies – the council will lose a lot of knowledge and skill if this proposal goes ahead, and remaining staff would be stretched to take on extra work.”

The PSA would work closely to provide feedback and propose alternative solutions to the council.

Trainor said the proposal was part of a wider look at cost cutting, which was being applied right across the council.

He said the council had “four levers” it could pull to improve its financial position, and listed those as rates, fees and charges, staffing costs and arrangements with contractors.

He said he believed they were already increasing rates to the “maximum that the community can probably afford”.

“Fees and charges is the other one we are going to have a good look at, in terms of what people are paying for the stuff that they use outside of rates.

“We have a number of other expenses that we are also looking at … like an example, the contracts for parks is part of those other expenses and we are looking to bring it in-house to see if we can save some money.”

The council has made no secret of its intention to slash costs over the past two years, with mayor Nigel Bowen calling for an urgent review of spending in March 2023 citing “massive escalations”.

At the time, Bowen wanted a full analysis of spending to ensure the best models were in place and the council was providing ratepayers with the best bang for their buck. That included looking at procurement processes, and whether it was more economical to employ skilled staff or use consultants.

The move came six months after information obtained by The Timaru Herald, under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA), revealed the council had spent almost $34m in five years on consultants.

On Monday, Bowen said councillors were “fully aware’’ of Trainor’s proposal and had been briefed ahead of it being shared with staff.

Bowen said they were supportive of the proposed changes, but they were not something that had been taken lightly.

“These are tough decisions. We don’t want to put anyone out of a job but we have to look at it.’’

He said the proposal was “a big one’’, and if it went ahead it would probably be the largest staff cut to happen at the council.

“There will be some people thinking this is great, we need to run really efficient services for the ratepayers, but also there a lot of people in these roles who are very much part of the community and love their jobs.’’

He said elected members had tried to tackle cost-saving measures before the council’s Long-Term Plan 2024-2034, but “we were not comfortable with where we got to’’.

“We have been going through line-by-line on what we can pull back on.’’

He asked the community to show respect for those families and individuals who may be impacted by the proposals.

History of restructures

If it goes ahead, the proposal will be the first major staffing change made by Trainor, but staff who have been at the council for a couple of years, or more, are likely to have been through the process in the past.

Prior to Trainor’s arrival, one of former chief executive Bede Carran’s final acts was to conduct his fifth restructure - a move described as “tone deaf” by the Public Service Association at the time.

Carran announced his last restructure in September, three months after he told the council he would not seek reappointment when his contract finished in December 2023.

At the time, PSA organiser Adrian Mealing questioned Carran’s intentions given the proximity to his departure, took a shot at Carran’s use of consultants and was critical of his handling of the restructure.

As well as regular restructuring of staff, Carran’s tenure saw the departure of several senior managers, the resignation of seven senior staffers from Timaru’s CBay acquatic centre in December 2022, and the council purchase of a gang pad, and three other gang-linked properties, at the centre of gang tensions in the town.

In September 2022, Carran defended his council’s spend of almost $34 million on consultants.

Six months later, in March 2023, Bowen called for the urgent review, asking councillors to support a review of expenditure.

In March 2024, the Christchurch City Council announced Carran had been appointed as its new chief financial officer.