Staff at the Canberra Institute of Technology say too many resources have been directed at hiring and boosting a new executive team at the expense of teaching staff.
The institute has drastically increased the number of executives and senior staff over the past two years in response to more than $8.5 million of contracts awarded to "complexity and systems thinker" Patrick Hollingworth.
But staff want more resources for teachers, with the union saying they have received "alarming reports" at growing stress levels among staff over a recruitment freeze and staff shortages.
The institute has denied there is a recruitment freeze but staff have said this is not their experience.
Australian Education Union ACT vice president and CIT teacher Karen Noble said planned recruitment processes had been put on hold.
Ms Noble said she understood the need to rebuild the executive following the Hollingworth contracts saga but she said the institute now needed to focus on the frontline staff. She said teachers were waiting for this only to be told the CIT was facing financial pressures as a result of the contracts.
The financial fallout from the contracts saga has been significant. The CIT board chair Kate Lundy said both the contracts and the costs associated with the procedural fairness processes during the integrity investigation had affected the institute's budget.
The CIT's former chief executive Leanne Cover was found to have engaged in "serious corrupt conduct" by the ACT Integrity Commission in a report released last month.
The report found Ms Cover had deliberately concealed contracts to "complexity and systems thinker" Patrick Hollingworth from the institute's board, including one contract that was $10 short of $5 million.
Ms Cover resigned before the report's release but she was stood down on full pay for two years.
The integrity report showed the institute was forecasting a deficit of $10.4 million in 2022, despite this Ms Cover signed the $4,999,990 contract with Mr Hollingworth at the start of 2022 without informing the board.
The CIT had an operating deficit of $6.3 million at the end of 2023, the institute's annual report has shown.
"The CIT has suffered reputationally through this investigation and it's cost an enormous amount of money and resources through this process," Ms Lundy said when responding to the report.
The entire executive team at the institute has been replaced at the institute over the last two years and there has been a significant headcount in the leadership team.
Leadership tables from the CIT in 2022 and 2024 shows no one from the executive has remained in their roles and the 2024 table is significantly more top-heavy than 2022.
The executive team at the institute has increased from five when Ms Cover was in charge to 15. The number of senior officers has increased from 47 at the end of 2022 to 91.
The number of staff in the corporate areas of the institute has also grown significantly, from 77 in 2021 to 125 in 2023, CIT annual reports show.
The CIT said this growth has meant the institute will not need to rely on external consultants. A CIT spokesman said there was no recruitment freeze in place for teaching staff.
"We are continuing to identify opportunities for process and service delivery improvement, prioritising our core business of teaching and learning, and making sure that the institute's resources are allocated to the areas of greatest needs," a CIT spokesman said.
But Ms Noble said a number of teachers are waiting for their contracts to be renewed and there was some uncertainty about whether they would even have a job at the start of next semester.
"CIT management denies claims of a recruitment freeze but this is not the experience of our members," she said.
"While CIT has found additional resourcing to expand its senior executive structure, it has not provided the same support to CIT teaching staff."
Consultation on the new executive structure show staff expressed concerns this represented a directorate rather than an education provider and it supported executives and not frontline staff.
"Staff resourcing (at the operational level) has always been a concern, how is adding multiple SES band positions going to help relieve this pressure and concern," a staff comment said.
Another said: "The organisational structure appears to support executives rather than frontline staff".
The CIT said staff were consulted extensively on the changes.
"CIT consulted extensively with staff about the executive structure, including new roles to insource capability and streamline business and teaching operations," the spokesman said.
The CIT is finalising a 10-year strategic plan, which is not based on any of the work Mr Hollingworth completed.
"Our strategic plan for the next 10 years builds on the reset that occurred after this crisis in 2022," Ms Lundy said.
"What we see now with the right-sized corporate structure, with a real conversation occurring amongst staff, with staff and our executive and the board that it is possible to change in the right kinds of ways to prepare this institute for future challenges."
