Councillors voted nine to five in favour of the budget, with the major bone of contention being internal and external borrowings totalling about $8 million.

Mayor David Redmond said in his mayoral minute that councillors had a month to put forward suggested changes to the draft budget.

``There have only been two proposals made,'' he said.

``[The first was] that council abandon any future loan borrowings and ... reprioritise its capital works and operational budget and maintain council's debt reduction program.

``[The second was] that an additional street from each ward be elevated in the program by 12 months over the next five years, and that capital works be reprioritised.

``These suggestions cannot be regarded as practical or genuine as they are not supported by specific proposals, alternate funding, or a list of projects that should be abandoned or put back.''

Councillor Kent Johns said borrowing to fund the capital works program was simply a tool to allow councillors to ``build monuments to themselves''.

``This is a bad budget,'' Cr Johns said.

``It means we can have a lot of announcements this year before the election in September and then not be able to afford to do anything for the next five years.

``I can see a massive rate increase in the first year of the new council to cover this incompetent budget.''

Cr Redmond challenged Cr Johns to put his money where his mouth was.

``If Cr Johns wants to take a position against borrowing, fine, but he has to show which parts of the budget he would remove to achieve that and so far we've heard nothing from him.''