Kitchen staff are set to find out in two weeks whether they have kept their jobs as the delay-ridden proposal, now about three years old, reaches its final stage.
The Compass Group has taken over the kitchens and is cutting staff numbers, in Dunedin and Invercargill, in anticipation of a shift to ''regeneration'' - reheating meals - rather than cooking them from scratch.
The new system starts next April and includes trucking some meals frozen from Auckland.
Lower-than-expected redundancies helps the cash-strapped board, as it has to meet redundancy costs as part of implementing the 15-year deal with the multinational company.
The official estimate is a loss of $650,000 on the project in this financial year. Savings do not kick in until next year.
Deputy commissioner Richard Thomson disclosed the lower redundancy costs on an online page set up to answer questions from the public, but declined to comment when contacted by the Otago Daily Times.
''The [redundancy costs] could only be an estimate at the time the proposal was approved and it looks as though they may have been estimated on the high side, as the actual redundancy costs look likely to be less than assumed in the model.
''This is largely due to some senior and/or long-serving staff taking other employment in anticipation of the changes and so there is no liability there.
''However, final costs won't be completely confirmed until Compass completes their change process,'' Mr Thomson wrote on the social media page.
Service and Food Workers Union southern organiser Anna Huffstutler said the health board should not be ''pre-determining the outcome'' by commenting on redundancy costs in the midst of the process.
Staff were giving expressions of interest over new positions and redundancy options, and would find out their future in about two weeks.
''We're nearing the end where they're going to get some certainty, which is great.''
Ms Huffstutler said there was also a retirement gratuity entitlement for workers in Dunedin, but not in Invercargill.
SFWU public and commercial services industry leader Jill Ovens said the board had not been replacing permanent staff for the past couple of years, and had been hiring ''lots of people'' on fixed-term agreements, which lowered redundancy liabilities.
While the long wait for staff was hugely frustrating, it was partly because their union had put up a strong fight to minimise job losses, not just at Southern, but in other boards that had adopted the Compass plan, Ms Ovens said.
At Southern, up to 20% of staff are expected to lose their jobs.
