St. Catharines' dusty old website is getting a makeover of up to $400,000 to make it more interactive for citizens.

The budget standing committee agreed to amend the city's 2020 capital budget to include the project, which staff said will allow the municipality to meet required accessibility standards and offer more online services.

Those include registering for swimming lessons; live chatting with customer service; paying taxes, water bills and parking tickets; submitting bylaw complaints; seeing a live map of snowplows in action and applying for building permits.

"It isn't simply a website that is providing information," said chief administrative officer Shelley Chemnitz. "There is interaction that citizens and businesses are looking for from there."

The current website was launched in 2005 and has had no major upgrade since. A staff report said user behaviour and expectations have dramatically changed since that time and people "no longer sit and read websites like an old, dusty encyclopedia."

Maggie Riopelle, manager of corporate communications, said the new website will streamline a lot of processes and involve less staff resources because people can do more business online instead of coming into city hall.

"I think the expectation is that's available and it really isn't right now functioning where it should be," she said.

Merritton Coun. Lori Littleton balked at the dollar figure, but Riopelle said part of that is due to integrations — getting the city's website to the point where it's speaking to the city's software.

Riopelle said each integration can cost from $5,000 to $10,000, noting Brantford's website cost $440,000 and had more than 100 integrations.

Council also heard the city must meet accessibility requirements for its website by Jan. 1, 2021 and concerns about the current site have been raised by a member of the city's accessibility advisory committee.

Grantham Coun. Bill Phillips said if the budget committee is going to improve the corporation in one way this year, an improved website is the way to do it.

"It is an old website and I'm hearing from residents it's difficult to navigate and it's not up to date. So if $400,000 is what it's going to take, I think we're at the point where we have to have a website that's comparable to Brantford or anybody for that matter," he said.

"It's time to modernize, although it is a lot of money."

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