Staff at Rotorua's Waiariki Institute of Technology are shocked by the surprise announcement that up to 40 of them could be dropped to cover a $3 million budget deficit.
Tertiary Institutes Allied Staff Association (TIASA) chief executive officer Peter Joseph said staff met on Thursday to discuss the announcement.
He said the
120 allied staff, non-teachers, were not well paid and felt they had been unfairly targeted.
At the same time Waiariki's council had recently "rewarded themselves with pay rises" - among them a $9750 boost for chairman Deryck Shaw.
Chairman of the Waiariki branch of the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE) Geoff Herd said tutors were also shocked by the recommendation to cut tutor numbers by 18.2 full time equivalents - to save the institute $875,000 a year.
If the cut went ahead class sizes would increase from the current student-tutor ratio of 13:1 to 15:1.
Mr Herd said staff acknowledged certain changes were necessary for the future of the institute but the proposed structures were more difficult to accept.
- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)
