Cardinia Shire Finance Team wins the Inaugural LG Finance Award

October 23, 2018

FinPro introduced the LG Finance Award this year in a belief that it is appropriate to recognise and reward a person or persons who has demonstrated a significant commitment and dedication to Local Government Finance in Victoria. This may be by way of general work performance excellence over a period of time or work excellence with regards to a significant project which is of value to the sector.

Nominations for the Award were sought from within the FinPro Membership in July and AUgust this year and a number of excellent well-deserved nominations were received.  Following a details review process, three nominations were shortlisted.  Each of these will receive one free full registration to this year’s FinPro conference.  The final winner receives a $2,000 professional development grant to put towards further professional development as well as a beautiful trophy.

The Executive wishes to thank people who took the time to nominate a staff member or group ā€“ without the nominations, the awarding of this award could not occur.

The three nominations shortlisted for awarding were:

1. Belinda Johnson ā€“ who has raised the profile of rural councils by working collaboratively in her professional role and she effectively advocates for positions that reflect the differences between rural and metro councils, a case in point is her work in raising issues such as the potential benefits and challenges that her rural colleagues need to take into consideration with changes in the financial provisions of the new Local Government Act.

2. Cardinia Shire Council Finance Team ā€“ who have being embracing artificial intelligence solutions for process automation to reduce process cost, improving data quality, and releasing valuable human resources to focus on customer service and innovating projects. One major success includes the introduction of Artificial Intelligence within Accounts Payable which has achieved a saving of over $100K per annum.

3. Mount Alexander Shire Council Finance Team – who had a very small team working on the replacement of their rates system, with no additional back-fill, and while still having to complete business as usual, successfully implemented the system and a complex data migration in only 3 months and become the first Council in Australia to utilise the new web-based package to raise rates.

Iā€™m sure you will agree with me that the shortlisted candidates have contributed significantly to the sector.

Congratulations to the Cardinia Shire Council’s Finance Team on being awarded the Inaugural Local Government Finance Award at the recent FinPro Conference.

Cardinia Shire Finance Team with their Award