Otago Polytechnic staff were "reasonably upbeat" after attending meetings yesterday outlining cost-cutting next year, acting chief executive Dr Robin Day said last night.
Some staff were nervous the meetings had been called to announce redundancies or restructuring, but they were "a very early heads-up" on the need to look seriously at the budget for next year and 2011 because of an anticipated drop in education funding, he said.
"Going out of the meeting I attended, there didn't appear to be any nervous staff members," Dr Day said.
"They were reasonably upbeat and certainly appreciated the briefing."
Chief executive Phil Ker spoke to about 230 staff in total. Most attended meetings in Dunedin which were video-conferenced to staff at the Cromwell campus. He left soon afterwards to fly to an educational conference in Canada.
Dr Day said Mr Ker did not detail how any funding shortfalls might be addressed.
"He talked about the hard work which would need to go in over the next two months on the budget. We have tried over the past two years to cut costs, but it comes to the point where you can no longer nibble around the edges. We will have to look at doing less of the things that don't pay and more of the things that do."
The Cromwell campus is not a money-maker for the polytechnic, but Dr Day said there was no talk yesterday of it closing. Because it was a regional campus with higher infrastructure costs, it received extra government funding, he said.
