IN 2019 the Shire of Toodyay purchased a new financial management software program for no apparent reason.
The State Auditor General, though critical of many aspects of Shire financial reporting, indicated that the shire’s computer accounting system was adequate and not at fault.
The contract was awarded ‘behind closed doors’ to New Zealand company Datacom Pty Ltd by a unanimous council decision.
It should be stated that none of the present councillors were elected members at that time, and the Shire CEO was Stan Scott, who resigned the following year.
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The contract was not advertised for public tender because the Shire used the WA Local Government (WALGA) preferred supplier scheme to select New Zealand company Datacom for the job.
The Shire paid WALGA $10,127 for the privilege of becoming the guinea pig for new software that was untested in WA.
Since 2019 the shire has paid Datacom a monthly licence fee of $3300 but from day one it has not performed to requirements.
The Shire says Datacom is not charging to fix the problem but public accounts show that, to date, it has paid Datacom a staggering total of $399,180.61 since 2019.
Add to this the huge number of wasted staff hours working with Datacom to fix the problem and the extra cost of Shire staff having to produce financial reports manually for council meetings and the figure must increase substantially.
The Shire says Datacom aims to have its software producing financial reports by the end of this month; three years after its introduction.
I am not holding my breath.
While all this has been going on, the Shire paid another IT company – Professional PC Support – a total of $369,530.70 to manage its overall IT systems.
As a matter of interest, during this time the Shire also paid WALGA a total $124,159.14 for its preferred supplier scheme, membership, training and other questionable services.
Last year’s WALGA financial report shows it ‘earned’ nearly $5 million ($4,928,305) from its preferred supplier scheme alone.
Maybe our councillors should demand that WALGA refunds the $10,127.80 we paid it for recommending Datacom as a reliable supplier.
At least this would help to offset the many extra staff hours wasted on this debacle.
However, in the final analysis, our councillors are accountable for all Shire spending and one has to wonder how they have watched a total of $770,000 spent on IT over the past three years without demanding that the CEO stem the flow until we have an accounting package that conforms to local government financial reporting standards.
Geoff Appleby
Toodyay
