Westland District Council chief executive Tanya Winter has taken a personal grievance claim against the council.
Last month, the council announced that Ms Winter's contract was not being renewed and councillors had decided instead to publicly advertise her job.
Ms Winter will stay on until September, when her five-year contract expires; she is able to reapply for the job.
Mayor Bruce Smith said yesterday: "We don't discuss staff matters as councillors".
Asked if Ms Winter was in the job, he said: "Yes, she's in the building and doing her job".
Ms Winter did not respond to media questions.
In November, the council clipped Ms Winter's wings, capping management expenditure at just $5000 down from $250,000.
Mr Smith was also vocal during his election campaign last year that change was needed at the top of the council.
Previously, he said Ms Winter's reign had resulted in the "collapse of the link between our community as owners and the council staff as servants of the ratepayer, and that is not acceptable".
"The reason for this council's disgraceful performance starts with the direction at the top, and that is also where the changes must occur," Mr Smith said during the election campaign.
In 2014 in an interview for the Local Government magazine, Ms Winter said that after four weeks of combing through council's
books after her appointment, an external consultant confirmed the worst.
"He provided me with a 14-page report that basically said we had spent all our reserves," Ms Winter said.
"We'd spent what council thought was there in their investment fund, we were keeping rates artificially low, we were using debt to fund operating expenditure, we were providing services to the community that we couldn't afford, and if we kept going that way we were heading for the rocks."
Meanwhile, a Serious Fraud Office inquiry continues into council assets manager Vivek Goel, who remains on leave from his job.
- Greymouth Star
