Penticton

Penticton City Hall has been hit with more layoffs.

Wednesday morning, Mayor Dan Ashton announced that 21 people have been let go as the city follows through with recommendations from a recent Core Services review.

The positions lost include recreation coordinators, accounting clerks and secretaries. In all, 17 union positions and four management positions have been lost.

“Management and staff have been pouring over the organizational chart and the recommendations that came forward were for these positions to be terminated. The terminations are effective immediately. People were told Tuesday,” says Ashton.

He says the reasons were partly budgetary as the city tries to deal with a projected deficit of $1.7M for 2011 and $2.7M for 2012.

“It's really easy to point a finger at the economy and say 'that's the issue,' but structurally, we've had to make changes. We are trying to make ourselves a lot more efficient, a lot more productive and a lot more oriented towards customer service and these were some of the recommendations that had come from the Core Services review.”

Ashton says out of the 21 lost positions, three new positions will be created.

“My heart and that of council goes out to the families of those affected. We are very, very sorry this had to happen, especially at this time of year. But there is no good time for this to happen.”

Over 40 city employees have been laid off since last March, leaving Penticton with 270 employees.

A press release from the City of Penticton says the restructure will save the City $970,000 in annual savings.

The release says the jobs lost include:

Recreation coordinator

Recreation supervisor

Parks and Facilities supervisor

Parks foreman

Heavy duty mechanic apprentice

Bylaw officer

Guard

Deputy fire chief

IT management

Utilities clerk

Cashier

Accounting clerk.