President Brian Kelson said the council needed a "complete independent audit" and "a monitor to oversee the spending and working of the organisation".

Chief executive officer Peter Schneider has announced the council would conduct an organisational review with an outside contractor to do the review.

"The audit needs to go back several years as the financial situation the council now finds itself in has not happened overnight," Mr Kelson said.

"The council's stance on breaking the rate capping has been very disappointing with very little regard to the people of Warrnambool.

"In polls conducted a massive 95 per cent said they didn't want the council to go ahead and apply to break the cap but this was ignored - so much for community consultation costing $30,000."

He said the recent resignation of a senior officer after being asked to pay back an undisclosed sum, raised questions about the use of council credit cards and asked who was responsible for signing off on transactions.

"It is incredible to think that the council has handed out 81 credit cards to their employees - this means approximately one in four staff members have a card," he said.

He said a credit card audit should be carried out by a independent company.

"This would show transparency and go a long way to repair the tarnished image of the council," he said.

He said councillors should also disclose if they had been the beneficiaries of any spending on council credit cards.

He said if any anomalies were found "the full force of the law should be applied".

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