AUBURN — The Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments has reduced weekly shifts for four employees from five days per week to four.

Greg Whitney, finance director for AVCOG, said for one, a staff planner, the change was requested.

“He is going toward retirement, so this is his idea,” Whitney said. “It’s his way of kind of easing into retirement.”

For the others, a finance assistant and two administrative assistants, the shifts were reduced to save money.

“Nobody was laid off or lost their jobs and we are not cutting any services,” Whitney said. “We may have been a little overstaffed in those areas. Today, with computers and everything, more people do things on their own as opposed to having an assistant type things up. That just doesn’t happen these days because people are more self-sufficient. So there is just not as much to do.”

Whitney said AVCOG still has 19 employees — 15 full-time staffers and the four part-timers.

The council provides planning and economic development help for communities in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. It has a $2.4 million budget; payroll accounts for $1.1 million of that budget.

“Payroll is the vast majority of our budget, because we provide services,” Whitney said. “We have a lot of staff because of what we do.”

staylor@sunjournal.com