LEWISTON – Automation would replace staffers on City Hall phone lines and at parking garages under a budget cutting plan.

City Administrator Jim Bennett unveiled the plan to trim 14 vacant city jobs for councilors Tuesday during a budget workshop meeting.

His plan would sacrifice open jobs in parks and recreation, public works and general assistance for an estimated $480,000 savings in the budget. Bennett said he plans to unveil more budget cuts at Thursday night’s workshop.

“But those won’t involve staffing, just operations,” Bennett said. They’d mean several thousand dollars in cuts, however.

Thursday’s meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.

Bennett’s plan doesn’t lay off any full-time employees, but does shift employees from departments across the city.

“None of these are simple,” Bennett said. “They involve multiple departments. But one key is that we have not had to lay off a single full-time employee.”

In City Hall, for example, Bennett hopes to move the central services telephone clerk to the Fire Department. The Fire Department clerk would move to the auditing department. The auditing clerk’s job opened last week when that person’s job moved to human resources. The human resources job has been open for several months.

“It gets confusing, and that’s why we wanted to take extra time to discuss it,” he said.

Several part-time parking garage attendants could see their jobs cut under the plan. Bennett would eliminate those jobs in September, replacing them with coin-operated parking gates.

Parks and recreation would lose all field maintenance and sidewalk clearing responsibilities as well. Four positions and all maintenance responsibilities would be transferred to public works. They’ll replace three vacant highway worker jobs.

Bennett said he spent Monday and Tuesday discussing the changes with department heads and city union leaders.

In all, the city has reduced staff size by 27 employees since Bennett started in 2002. The newest round of cuts would reduce staff size by 41 people since 2002.