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Where the money goes

The Council gets its money from a range of sources, including rates, borrowing, and money from user charges and government grants (especially from NZTA for roading).

This section outlines how much money comes from each source, what we will spend it on this year (including both operating spending and capital investment), and what specifically you are paying for with your rates.

Where the money comes from

In 2017/18, less than half of our total funding will come from your rates, as shown in the table below.

Sources of Council funding %
Rates 42%
Dividends and interest 22%
Fees, charges, grants, and subsidies 17%
Development contributions 2%
Transfers from reserves 7%
Borrowing 8%
Earthquake recoveries and asset sales 2%
Total 100%

What we will spend this year

In 2017/18, we will spend a total of $1.07 billion on operating and capital costs, excluding housing, which is funded separately from its own rental income.

This total spending is split between our various groups of activity as shown in the table below.

Total Council spending, by activity $000 %
Community services 36,619 4%
Libraries, arts and culture 110,770 11%
Economic development 14,095 1%
Flood protection and control works 20,946 2%
Heritage protection and policy 9,346 1%
Parks and open spaces 56,723 6%
Refuse minimisation and disposal 44,569 4%
Regulation and enforcement 58,403 6%
Roads and footpaths 120,623 13%
Sewerage collection, treatment and disposal 73,903 7%
Sport and recreation 97,558 10%
Stormwater drainage 92,374 9%
Strategic governance 24,600 2%
Strategic policy and planning 14,735 1%
Transport 89,366 9%
Water supply 39,655 4%
Finance costs 89,978 9%
Other 12,829 1%
Total 1,007,092 100%

What your rates are spent on

Many of our activities are paid for by our non-rates revenue (especially dividends, user charges, and funding from NZTA and others).

The activities specifically paid for by your rates in 2017/18 are shown in the table below.  This is just a different way of expressing the total spending table above, but only showing the amount of our spending that's paid for specifically by your rates.

For context, we've presented it in two ways:  The number of cents spent on each activity per dollar of rates that you pay, and what this works out to be per week for the average residential ratepayer.  For example, the average home-owner pays around $3.70 per week for parks and open spaces.

How your rates will be spent Cents per dollar of rates paid Average residential rates per week
Community services 6.6 cents $6.68
Libraries, arts and culture 12.8 cents $6.15
Economic development 3.1 cents $1.49
Flood protection and control works 0.4 cents $0.19
Heritage protection and policy 0.5 cents $0.24
Parks and open spaces 7.7 cents $3.70
Refuse minimisation and disposal 7.9 cents $3.80
Regulation and enforcement 2.3 cents $1.11
Roads and footpaths 13.7 cents $6.58
Sewerage collection, treatment and disposal 13.9 cents $6.68
Sport and recreation 6.6 cents $3.17
Stormwater drainage 6.2 cents $2.98
Strategic governance 5.6 cents $2.69
Strategic policy and planning 3.0 cents $1.44
Transport 1.0 cents $0.48
Water supply 8.7 cents $4.18
Total 100.0 cents $48.05