The district council is undertaking a financial hygiene project to make it easier for spending to be tracked.
“We are still unpicking and unpacking things that have been 10-15 years in the making,” Mason told the finance and performance committee.
“I think I’ve always been up-front that you don’t turn the Titanic around in a year.”
“The necessary systems and processes have not always been in place to support a council as it transitions from a small district council to a medium-sized, almost metropolitan-sized council.”
A major challenge is the outdated financial software, MagiQ, which the council has used for 35 years.
Chief financial officer Alison Sneddon said add-ons to the system over the years had made the software unusable.
“We’ve not set MagiQ up well and now we need to go through a process of tidying it up.”
Sneddon said at one point, the council had 24,000 general ledger codes – unique identifiers that are used to track financial transactions – which made the system “completely unmanageable”.
Mayor Sam Broughton commended Mason for being up-front about the issues and the necessary spending required to fix them.
Prior to Mason’s arrival, Broughton said the issues had not been raised.
“With different people, previous systems might have worked really well for them, but we are now in a stage where it’s 2025 and we need new systems and are implementing those.”
The problems with MagiQ were highlighted during the 2023-34 Long Term Plan audit.
“The timeline for completing the Long Term Plan was impacted when a new MagiQ module was introduced,” Mason said.
Another challenge for the council is reducing its number of cost centres – a specific department or area within a company where costs can be tracked and measured – from thousands to about 200.
“The number of cost centres we have is ridiculous for an organisation.”
As part of the Long Term Plan, the council has budgeted about $1.3 million each year to upgrade its digital technology to better undertake its business.
Mason said the financial hygiene project will be completed by the end of 2025, after which they will replace MagiQ. No timeline or cost has yet been set for its replacement.
