AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Turnpike Authority is eliminating 20 positions from its payroll as the organization continues to adapt to a need for fewer toll collectors and tries to get by with fewer managers.

The position eliminations will mostly affect the supervisor ranks, Peter Mills, the turnpike authority’s executive director, said Wednesday.

“We have a lot of supervisors,” he said. “A lot of those jobs hark back to a time when there were 200 or more toll collectors. We’re top heavy.”

The changes will save $1.25 million annually, according to Mills. The turnpike authority currently takes in about $103 million annually in tolls and another $3 million annually from operating its service plazas.

News of the position cuts comes the same week the turnpike authority is holding three public hearings on its proposal to raise tolls in order to generate about $26 million annually in additional revenue.

Mills said the position cuts are unrelated to the proposed toll increases. “I would have done it anyway, because it needs to be done,” he said.

In the turnpike’s toll collection division, Mills said the organization will eliminate 13 supervisory positions and consolidate their duties into four newly created positions. A building maintenance staffer will also be affected.

In the road maintenance division, Mills said, the authority plans to eliminate three clerk positions and assign their duties to supervisors. In addition, the authority doesn’t plan to call six seasonal plow drivers back to work when the winter season hits.

The customer service division will lose one position, Mills said, but the affected employee has already been transferred to another job.

Mills said he informed the affected employees on Tuesday. He said the eliminations won’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2013, giving affected employees time to make plans for retirement or move to different positions within the organization if they open up.

“The people I talked to were actually quite relieved that we’re giving six months,” Mills said.

The position eliminations are the result of an organizational study Mills said he requested several months ago. He said he challenged his managers to develop a plan to get by with fewer supervisor-level positions.

The turnpike authority board will take up the position-cutting proposal at a meeting on Thursday, according to Mills.

This is among the first instances of layoffs in turnpike authority history, Mills said. But the authority has eliminated many positions through attrition, especially with the increased use of electronic toll-collecting E-ZPasses.

The authority had more than 800 employees in the mid-1990s. Today, it’s down to about 300 full-time, permanent employees and about 150 seasonal and on-call workers.