The organisation that administers and leases Maori land has earmarked more than $1 million to make redundancies and shake up its staffing.
The office of the Maori Trustee is undergoing a restructure - including a cut to its workforce.
Since taking up the job a year ago, Maori Trustee Jamie Tuuta has made no secret of his plans to make land more productive and make more money for owners.
But to do that staff were told they had to change the way they worked.
Nine people chose instead to collect $494,000 between them in redundancy payments and more might follow - with a total of $1.3 million set aside for payouts.
The workforce is to be cut from 78 to 60 and the restructure is expected to be finished by the beginning of November.
