Millions more pounds are to be pumped into getting a controversial computer system at Norfolk County Council working properly - at a time when services are facing cuts and council tax is set to rise.
Critics have slammed the Conservative-controlled council over the need to add £4m to the £17m already spent on the MyOracle system at County Hall.
The computerised human resources and finance system, introduced in April last year, has been beset with problems.
Staff have complained they had been paid late, incorrectly or not at all, while there have been issues regarding pension registration and sick pay.
Council leaders insist the system will save money and that the old one had to be replaced to reduce the risk of hacking.
The council had acknowledged a "small number" of contracted staff had not been receiving their pay on the right dates, but that they had been quickly paid once problems were spotted.
But it has now emerged that the authority is having to spend millions more on the system, including for extra staff to get it working correctly.
At its next meeting, the full council is asked to agree to put a further £2.5m into the budget for MyOracle for 2022/23 and £1.6m over the next four years.
That is at a time when the authority is making £60m of cuts and savings and proposing a 4.99pc council tax rise.
The council says the "overall scale and complexity" of the new system and the impact of launching it during the Covid pandemic had created "challenges".
The money is needed to keep on specialist contractors who were brought in to troubleshoot problems and, potentially, for new support contracts.
But Steve Morphew, leader of the opposition Labour group at County Hall, said: "We continue to get reports of concerns and frustration with My Oracle despite the repeated assertions from the administration all is going well.
"Needing to add an extra £2.5m this year and a further £1.6m in the future suggests there is more to this than is being admitted.
"We need to get to the bottom of what’s really going on before we throw more millions at it."
At the budget-setting meeting where the council is due to agree to put more than £4m into resolving the MyOracle issues, the council is due to agree to make millions of pounds of savings.
Those include closing Mayton Wood recycling centre near Coltishall, reducing the opening hours of Norfolk Record Office, dimming more street lights and axing some mobile library stops.
And the authority is also proposing a 4.99pc increase in the share of council tax which goes into County Hall's coffers.
That will add between £51 and £152 a year to annual bills for people across the county.
All 84 members of the council are due to meet on Tuesday (February 21) to agree to the extra money for MyOracle as part of its budget-setting meeting.
Staff at County Hall are also on tenterhooks over the first phase of a strategic review which external consultants carried out at the council.
The council has earmarked £17.5m of savings through the first phase of that review, with Tom McCabe, head of paid service, having previously warned of "significant" job losses.
The council has said it will aim to avoid compulsory redundancies, but has yet to make public how many jobs would be at risk.
A spokesman said: "While there have been challenges since the system went live, the fact is that introducing any large technology platform for an organisation the size of the council was always going to have its complexities.
"However there have also been many successes, and as each month passes the numbers of the challenges has reduced significantly."
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