Town of Cambridge council to pay back $1m in rates after overcharging ratepayersMichael PalmerPerthNow – Western SuburbsThu, 4 September 2025 10:10AMEmail Michael Palmer
Western suburbs residents will be paid back $1 million after a rates bungle by their council.
The Town of Cambridge council held a special meeting last night to re-visit its budget after the State Administrative Tribunal quashed its rates on September 2.
The blunder was found by town staff after a resident questioned their bill on August 20.
A town report said it had charged some properties a rate in the dollar of 0.001995 instead of 0.001854, resulting in 4633 properties in parts of City Beach and Floreat being overcharged $999,739.
Affected ratepayers who have paid their bill in full will receive a refund, while those who have made partial payments will be credited.
Affected ratepayers will be notified directly.
The budget also had a procedural error by referring to “cents in the dollar” instead of “rates in the dollar”.
The new rates were adopted with comment by council members at last night’s meeting.
Town of Cambridge CEO Lisa Clack apologised at the meeting to residents and the council for the error.
She said rates comprised a large part of household budgets and charging residents the wrong amount was “unacceptable”.
“The budget process this year was a strong team effort from both employees and elected members, and for this issue to be identified after that process is deeply regrettable,” Ms Clack said.
“I want to confirm to our community that the error originated during the early modelling stages of the calculation, with a rating quirk that’s specific to the Town of Cambridge.
“It was unfortunately not picked up in subsequent internal reviews and it simply would not have been possible for the town’s elected members to have been able to identify the error during the budget process.
“The issue was squarely with the town’s administration in the calculation of the rates as part of the budget process.
“I know the mayor and council committed many hours to interrogating budget data to achieve the best outcome for this community, including the rates modelling they were presented.”
Ms Clack said staff had double-checked rates bills for other properties in the town were correct.
The town will also have an external review of its budget development.
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