Irrespective of size, location and resources, all share the problem of how to allocate the rate burden across their rate base to effectively meet Council’s objectives. Yankalilla District Council, located an hour south of Adelaide in South Australia, is one of several Councils using the IBIS Information Systems Rate Modelling and Valuation Analysis application to quickly model the impact of a particular rating proposal on the total rate bill and individual properties.
The IBIS Rate Modelling system gives Councillors instant results that do not need to be interpreted by staff. It gives them confidence in the figures as they can see how a proposal would work and what the results would be.
Yankalilla CEO, Roger Sweetman, outlined the IBIS rate modelling system at the Local Government Association of South Australia’s Showcasing Local Government event in October. He said the system has enabled Council to achieve its rating strategy goals by allowing extensive rates modelling with a high degree of certainty in a manner that was not resource intensive.
Yankalilla includes coastal townships with holiday home owners, coastal investment properties, tourist facilities and coastal retirement properties. Council decided that the 48 per cent of landowners who are non residents should pay higher rates than people living in Yankalilla permanently.
The IBIS system imports information from Council’s rates database. Yankalilla staff then identify non resident owners and therefore residents, pensioners, self funded retirees and fixed income residents within the system and select a list of properties within each grouping.
“Options are then run and the impact is checked against target properties and Council’s budget,” said Roger Sweetman. “We continue to do this until we are confident that rates in the dollar levied and remissions and rebates provided achieve Council’s rating policy.”
He said that Council has made an effort to protect the community from potential negative impacts from the seachange trend and recent popularity of coastal properties.
Yankalilla’s Assistant Manager Corporate Services, Corinne Garrett, said the IBIS system has resulted in dramatic improvements in rating decisions.
“As a small Council with a population of 4,400 we have the ability to look at individual cases and assess the percentage at which individual properties should be rated,” she said. “The system also has the capability to be more automated in the case of larger Councils.”
For further information contact Corinne Garrett on (08) 8558 0205 or Richard Noble at IBIS Information Systems on (03) 9894 0658 or visit www.ibisinfosys.com.au.
