Shoalhaven Council has been accused of ignoring a staffing freeze implemented earlier this year.
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During discussions about the council's budget and the potential for massive rate rises during January, councillors voted to implement a freeze on hiring new staff - unless the position was required to meet legislative requirements, or the executive management team determined the position was required.
The motion also called for vacancies to be filled by internal recruitment where possible, to provide career paths for existing staff.
However since that time more than 90 positions have been advertised, according to figures compiled by members of the Shoalhaven City Council Residents Complaints group.
They have put the total wages and associated oncosts for the positions at more than $11 million.
Shoalhaven Mayor Amanda Findley defended the number of positions still being advertised.
She said a freeze on hiring staff "won't suit people trying to get a DA through, nor would it suit other areas of council where we need to have people on the ground doing the work".
"There's definitely areas of council that can't not have people replaced - some of them are required to keep the business ticking over," Cr Findley said.
"There are a number of positions that continue to be advertised because council will grind to a halt in certain operational areas if there's no people there to do the work."
She said cutting staff numbers was "not the direction that's come from the community".
"The community have been pretty clear that they still want work to be done, they still want council to look at how it supplies services, and service reviews will be undertaken, but reducing the council to a nothing is not feasible," Cr Findley said.
"It's just an unreasonable expectation to think that there's not going to be any jobs advertised for Shoalhaven City Council."
Cr Findley said the hiring freeze was "definitely in force, it just doesn't look like it to the public because there are still ads going out".
"There's no increase in staff numbers, and staffing is being watched very intently by the CEO and by the directors," she said.
Council's CEO and the directors were "scrutinising every ad that goes out", according to Cr Findley, as staff were "working really hard to find savings".
"If anyone believes that council is operating at the moment in a business as usual fashion they're mistaken because there are so many cuts that have been made already," Cr Findley said.
However Cr John Wells, who proposed the hiring freeze, said council's draft budget for 2024-25 included a 12 per cent increase in the annual wages bill from $111 million to $126 million.
That was part of a 25 per cent increase in wages over two years, he told the Shoalhaven Council meeting on Monday, May 6.
Cr Wells said he had still been unable to find out how many staff council employed, despite repeated requests.
