On Wednesday, March 27, Wodonga council's chief executive Matthew Hyde announced the redundancies of the managerial staff within the community directorate.

In fact, the whole community development directorate has been chopped, and will be absorbed into the corporate and community, and infrastructure and growth directorates.

According to Wodonga Council's website, the community development directorate "supports and promotes good governance and a positive customer experience".

Community director Debra Mudra was the biggest name on the chopping block.

She was acting chief executive from late 2021 to July 2022, when Mr Hyde took the helm.

Ms Mudra's bio on Wodonga council's website said she was responsible for "a range of business units that support staff in the work that they do, encourages the community and partners to actively engage with council and strives to champion the opportunities that a strong and vibrant city provides in contributing to positive social, economic and environmental outcomes for our community."

Mr Hyde said the move would streamline service delivery and reduce the council's operating budget.

"We're restructuring the way that we do business to make sure we provide value for money for the ratepayer," he said.

"The three redundancies is the major impact, and our services have been redistributed.

"So we've gone from having a number of managers across the organisation to less, and all those duties and those services have been moved under different managers."

Mr Hyde said the restructuring aims to save money in the next council budget.

"We have an underlying deficit, which you can see in our financial statements at the moment, and we're aiming in the draft budget to save around $2.8 million," he said.

"We're looking across the board at how we can create efficiencies, and that budget will be out for consultation in the near future."

Mr Hyde said the changes would have a "minimal" impact on ratepayers.

"I don't think ratepayers will notice the immediate changes," he said.

"It's mainly around moving those services and creating those efficiencies. From a public point of view, there'll be a very minimal notice with that."

Mr Hyde did not rule out the possibility of further job cuts in the future.

"Certainly with every business at the moment, finances are tight," he said.

"We'll continue to look for improvements across the organisation."