Operational savings of $72,000 have been sought by the Dunedin City Council from within the Otago Settlers Museum operating budget while the venue largely remains closed to the public.
A report by council community life general manager Graeme Hall had identified $36,000 in savings available in 2011-12, by reducing the staff count from 17.5 to 15 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff, as work on the museum's $8.6 million stage four upgrade continued.
Most museum staff continued to work on tasks associated with the museum's upgrade, but the savings came from reduced demand for visitor host staff at the museum, he said.
Councillors yesterday agreed with a suggestion by Cr Syd Brown and voted to accept the saving, but also agreed to delay archive cataloguing work, which was to be carried out by the visitor hosts during the museum's closure.
That meant the operational saving would double to $72,000 in 2011-12.
Mr Hall said a "change management" process was already under way, discussing redundancies with union representatives, and one staff member had already left the museum.
It was not yet known if more would follow, as visitor hosts were shared with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the need for further redundancies would depend on the balance of hours between the two organisations, he said.
Once the museum reopened, its staff count was expected to rise again to 24 FTE staff, to cater for a doubling of the museum's overall size, he confirmed.
A larger "wish-list" of 30 staff had already been rejected by the museum board, he added.
