Montreal: Telefilm Canada will reduce its payroll by $1.1 million and eliminate 24 full-time positions by the end of fiscal ’97. Five other jobs are being transformed to contract or part-time positions.

Executive director Francois Macerola says the decision follows a detailed priorities study done on a departmental basis with the participation of 37 staffers at the federal funding agency.

‘We are trying to be imaginative, trying to transform the morphology of our dollars from administration to operations, increase our revenues and reduce programs that are only complementary to our core activity,’ he says.

The new reductions combined with last year’s 24 layoffs bring full-time personnel to just over 120, a 27% cut over two years.

Macerola says Telefilm will reduce its administrative budget by $3 million over the next three years, from $15.6 million in ’95/96, to $13.7 million this year, and $12.6 million in ’98/99.

Telefilm’s parliamentary appropriation has been cut by more than $18 million this year, bringing its ’96/97 budget to $144.8 million.

An additional $10 million from the Loan Guarantee Program will bring total spending to $154.8 million.

The administration share of the budget is under 9%, says Macerola.

Telefilm departments – including production and distribution – have been integrated into core business units.

Other areas earmarked for cuts include spending on professional fees, canceling of festival receptions, a reduction in corporate publications and rent at the Montreal and Vancouver offices.

‘In Paris, for example, we are starting discussions with the Canadian Embassy and others to have a budget reduction, because when we signed the lease nobody knew our budget would be reduced by something like $35 million over a three-year period,’ says Macerola.

He says ‘every single dollar’ has been examined. The agency’s ’96/97 revenues, pegged at $35 million to $39 million, are being returned exclusively to the primary funds, he says.