City of Ballarat is one of the largest local governments in regional Victoria, with more than 760 full-time equivalent (EFT) employees and income of about $267 million for 2021. The municipality covers an area of 740 square kilometres, which includes the outlying townships of Buninyong, Miners Rest, Learmonth and Cardigan Village.

When the departure of several senior executives during the first half of 2020 exposed some weakness around the budget development process, the council decided to remove any risk by creating a much more transparent and consultative budget development process.

In October 2020, City of Ballarat’s Acting Director of Corporate Services Stephen Bigarelli and Senior Management Accountant Luke Wheeler embarked on a review of available solutions to identify a software-based system that could integrate with its existing Microsoft Office 365 environment and the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Local Government financial management system.

Mr Wheeler said non-negotiable features for the required budgeting system were that it worked, included labour budgeting and was easy to use. “It had to be easy for users to understand, so it would be straightforward for them to do labour budgeting, capital planning and so on,” he said.

“As part of that, it had to look nice on the eye, so that users found it is simple to learn and navigate.”

After reviewing the market, City of Ballarat selected MAGIQ Budgeting, a powerful business budgeting software tool offered by Melbourne-based Evolution Business Systems (EBS), which specialises in selling, installing and supporting enterprise resource planning solutions for not-for-profit organisations and local governments.

City of Ballarat placed an order for MAGIQ with EBS at the end of December that year.

Mr Wheeler said the budget development process would normally start in January. “This year we did not commence it until the fourth week of February,” he said.

“Also, we included consultation whereas previously it did not. We even managed to incorporate some community consultation, so we did reasonably well this year considering the short timeframe.

“Our people asked for more transparency and openness. As a result, they requested an extra 100 EFT staff over what we had and twice the capital expenditure budget. When you ask people what they want, they tell you. It allowed everyone to have their say – they now feel listened to, even if they did not get what they asked for.

“That was game-changing, a big cultural shift. We really flipped it on its head. Also, it has helped us in the long run because we now know what people want to work towards.

“The benefits are the ones you can’t measure in financial terms, such as people’s acceptance. You can’t put dollars on that. For example, it has lifted the profile of the finance department to a much higher level because we are seen as consulting rather than dictating.”

Mr Wheeler said MAGIQ made the budget development process much better. “It is much more transparent and consultative than before and better reflects what our organisation does,” he said.

“Our staff say that previously, the budget did not represent what we do. The budget now is about what our people actually do rather than being a projection based on the previous year’s budget. This is a much more open, transparent process.

“We now ask people what they want rather than tell them what to do. We have a planning product that they can use and understand, and we have a good system with the critical knowledge embedded.

“Time-wise it took more time because this was the first time, thus more complex, but it is a better developed system than Ballarat had used before, so we now have that history there, which means it will be much easier in future.