After receiving complaints about its website being difficult to navigate the Central Coast Regional District hopes to make some improvements.
Chief administrative officer Curtis Slingerland told the board at its regular meeting May 16, the website platform requires an update.
“Currently, it is built using Dupral8, which is a no longer supported platform (e.g., the company is not creating anything new for the website and there is limited support) as of November 2021,” he said.
Soon the website will need to be converted to keep it secure and stable.
Staff have looked at updating it to Dupral9 which is “quite” expensive because there are more than 1,300 pages on the website.
Converting to WordPress is one of the options, which Slingerland said would be less expensive and would not involve consultants because it could be done in-house.
An upgrade to Dupral9 would cost an estimated $30,000 to $60,000 as opposed to starting from scratch with WordPress for $35,000.
To fund the majority of it, staff suggested utilizing and reallocating $4,000 from capital works budget for staff electronic devices, $3,400 for professional development, $15,800 for consulting fees, $5,000 for administrative supplies and $2,600 from employee travel expenses for a total of $30,800.
Area A director Steve Emery said he felt moving to WordPress was the best option because many people are familiar with using it.
Chair Jayme Kennedy said there has been a substantial cost to the CCRD due to Freedom of Information Requests (FOIs) in the past year.
“I think a lot of those costs could be avoided if we had a more navigable website because it seems like a lot of those FOIs are information that is publicly available but not easily accessible,” she said.
“This seems like a no-brainer and will save on the long run of staff time and FOIs that take many hours and resources.”
The board voted to authorize a maximum of $40,000 be allocated to upgrade the website and authorized staff to upgrade and develop the website.
READ MORE: CCRD to hold June meeting in Shearwater
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