30 June may feel like the same as any other day to a lot of people, but for Auckland Council it signals the last day of its financial year - the day that accounts are balanced, and the books are closed on the last 12 months.
It’s a bit like totting up a household budget at the end of the month, only for a family of more than 1.65 million people.
Aucklanders recently got a feel for what this looked like for the 2018-2019 year in the NZ Herald’s ‘how your rates are spent’ series. The series examined not only what money was spent – and saved – but where and how we did it across the many hundreds of services we provide.
There were some great examples highlighted, from regional transport upgrades down to local initiatives such as Te Manawa, the new multi-purpose library and community hub at Westgate. But, as the series ran over a full week, we thought we should wrap it all up with a breakdown of the figures in one place.
On rates notices, our expenditure is broken down into two areas, capital spend - the money we invest in new services and structures - and operating spend - how much it costs to run and maintain our services, buildings etc - but there are a few other things we take into account too.
The table below broadly explains how rates are spent. Click the image to see a larger version:
