Herefordshire Council has approved what it says is the lowest per centage council tax rise in its history.
The increase of 2.54 per cent takes a Band D property to £1,205.09 per month from April.
It is also below the average council level for the country, say the authority.
The council balanced its books last year for the seventh year running and achieved £5.6 million in savings for the next financial year.
Councillors heard it had allocated an extra £1.5 million in capital and extra reserves for road maintenance, following the worst cold spell in the county for 30 years.
Herefordshire, with its contractor Amey, is filling in 200 potholes a day, dealing with the most urgent first but allocating £3.7 million over the next 12 months to bring roads up to repair and resurfacing the road network.
Council leader Roger Phillips said the impact of any rise on local communities was recognised.
However, the county was facing huge pressures in providing more social care for vulnerable and older people as well as facing more costs for child protection.
The numbers of people receiving intensive home care has risen by 25 per cent in two years. An extra £500,000 in contingency was being allocated for social care in the next financial year.
Councillor Phillips announced that he expected soon to hear details of the new dedicated schools grant funding formula from the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
Herefordshire Council has been lobbying for a fairer deal for schools, as the county gets just over £4,000 funding per pupil from government, compared with the national average of nearly £4,400.
The county is fighting for government recognition of the higher overheads providing education in sparsely populated areas.
Herefordshire people get £317 each from the central government formula grant, which is 17 per cent less funding per head of population than the average for similar authorities, despite the fact that public services are more expensive to provide in rural settings.
