How is a rate increase for your home calculated? The first thing to say is that there are two elements. 
1: Domestic regional rate
2: Domestic district rate
The Fermanagh and Omagh District Council only have control over the domestic district rate which was struck at 2.3 per cent at a meeting last week. 
The regional rate is set by central government. This usually means by the Minister in the Department of Communities but with no Stormont this onus now falls to civil servants. The regional rate is further complicated because as yet there is no budget set for Northern Ireland for the coming year. 
This makes it almost impossible for civil servants to establish what the regional rate needs to be. The budget, in the absence of Stormont, is set by the Secretary of State. This is Karen Bradley at present. 
On to the next step. 
The regional rate and district rate are each given a different percentage, which together add up to 100 per cent, when calculations are made.
For non-domestic rates, the district rate is given a percentage of 39 and the regional rate a percentage of 61. 
So taking the district rate of 2.3 percent struck at the council meeting that is now multiplied by 0.39 to reflect the above percentage which means that the decision by council will result in 0.897 percent of a rise in your non domestic rates bill. 
But that is not the end of the story. 
Because we must now wait for the increase in the regional rate, which is expected in the coming month. For argument sake let us say we will see an increase of 5 per cent. 5 would be multiplied by 0.61 which would give an increase of 3.05 per cent. 
This figure must then be added to the figure of 0.897 from the district rate to get the total percentage increase. In doing this we come to a total increase of 3.947 percent. 
For non-domestic (business) rates the mechanism is the same, but the weighting of regional and district rate is different. The district rate is 45 percent and the regional 55 percent meaning that the district rate set last week at council will result in a 1.035 percent increase for businesses (2.3 multiplied by 0.45). 
In either scenario what we can be sure of is that further rate rises are on the way with the likelihood that the regional rate will se a bigger increase than the district rate.