Alliant restructuring to eliminate 70 positions

Another round of restructuring at Alliant Energy will result in a net loss of 60-70 jobs in the company's energy delivery operations, a company spokesman said on Monday, June 21.

The restructuring is intended to better control costs following the sale of Alliant's Iowa transmission assets to ITC Midwest, Alliant spokesman Ryan Stensland said.

“We're in the midst of back-to-back (electric) rate cases, and we're looking at better ways to manage our costs,” Stensland said.

The decision is more of a structural change rather than a budget-related restructuring like the series of layoffs last year that eliminated about 200 Alliant positions. The 2009 cutbacks included six executive positions and more than 20 director-level positions. They were blamed mainly on falling electric demand due to the recession among large industrial customers.

Stensland said one emphasis of the present restructuring will be on the account management function for large customers.

“Before it was primarily a sales function,” Stensland said. “Not it is shifting focus to do more account management.”

Stensland said the company will try to work more closely on relationships with customers to help them find ways to improve productivity or otherwise further their business.

The headquarters of Interstate Power & Light in Cedar Rapids is expected to incur a little over half of the reductions in positions, Stensland said, because Interstate Power & Light has a larger service territory than Wisconsin Power & Light.

Alliant began the restructuring recently and is expected to complete the process in the third quarter with the filling of all newly created positions.

The Iowa Utilities Board is considering a request from Interstate Power & Light for permission to raise its annual revenues by $163 million, or 14 percent. Most of the increase is requested to pay for its new Whispering Willow Wind Farm.