Making cents of Council dollars

It takes a lot of money to make our towns tick. In fact, each year we spend around $100 million on getting it done. Sorting the finances for a business this size is complex and often confusing. So this series Making cents of Council dollars will hopefully help you make sense of it all!

Rates

If you're a property owner, you'll pay rates each year. Your payment helps pay for all sorts of services, like safe road and footpaths, recycling, parks and playgrounds, and community facilities like pools and libraries. Your payment also means that your town grows in the right way, and continues to be a great place to be.

Read more: Our services - Rates

Property valuations

The amount your property is worth has an impact on how your rates bill is calculated.

Read more: Our services - Rating valuation

Borrowing money

As a council, we need to borrow money to pay for some of our big ticket items. When we borrow money, it means we have debt. Although it can sound scary, borrowing money and having debt is actually a good thing - as long as it's well managed.

Read more: Our Council - Financial strategy

Fees and charges

From the $100 million or so it takes to run our towns each year, $15.3 million comes from fees and charges. Every three years, Council looks at the services we provide and decides whether they should be funded by rates, the user, or a combination of both.

Read more: Our Council - Fees and charges

Deciding where our dollars go

So we collect money. But then we need to decide what it's going to be spent on. How do your mayor and councillors do this? Well, there's a few different ways...

Read more: Our Council - 10-Year Plan

Read more: Our Council - Annual Plan