CIT's crisis is a chance to examine all options on the table
Another sorry chapter has been written in the saga of the Canberra Institute of Technology's drawn-out leadership instability.
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After weeks of silence and speculation, Dr Margot McNeill has tendered her resignation and, the board confirmed the following day, will receive a handsome payout of about $445,000.
Following her controversial departure from TAFE NSW and ongoing investigations into whether hire cars were used at the EV Centre of Excellence, parting ways with its chief executive was probably the only way for the institution to move forward.
But a $445,000 payout is sure to come as a sting to the CIT workers facing further cuts designed to reduce expenditure by 10 per cent.
The savings will come from a combination of voluntary redundancies and other budget savings.
Meanwhile, staff based at the CIT Bruce campus in particular are working in rundown facilities.
They deal with patchy Wi-Fi, dodgy toilets and poor heating and cooling while doing the important job of imparting vital skills to Canberrans.
There are even reports that staff wear blankets in the office for fear of turning on the heaters and causing the electricity to short-circuit. This is hardly befitting of a public institution at the coalface of skills training in the national capital.
CIT board chair Tom Rogers has acknowledged that there is a........
