The city council's draft budget was released to the public on Thursday where rates are flagged to rise in line with the state government-imposed cap.

At the height of last year's pandemic, as the then vice-president of the Warrnambool Ratepayers Association, Cr Ben Blain called for rates to be frozen as the city grappled with the impact of lockdowns.

Since being elected to the council at the October elections, Cr Blain said he hadn't changed his mind.

"I reckon rates should be frozen this year," he said.

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"Everyone deserves to have one with the last year we've had with the pandemic.

"Everyone's been hurt.

"Everyone's done it tough and we all deserve to have some relief. All our neighbours could do it, Moyne did it, Corangamite did it, Warrnambool should have been able to do it as well."

The previous council chose not to freeze rates last year, increasing them only by the state-government imposed cap even though it had special permission from the Essential Services Commission to increase rates by an extra two per cent above the cap like it did the previous year.

While ratepayers were given a reprieve from the extra rate rise last year it was flagged to be imposed in the 2022/23 financial year, but the council would need to get special permission from the ESC again to do it.

"This year the rates are only going up 1.5 per cent, when we broke the rate cap we put it up two per cent, so even if we didn't take the 1.5 per cent this year, the people of Warrnambool are still behind," Cr Blain said.

"It should be something that council should be able to offer.

"The community was upset when they broke the rate cap."

Mayor Vicki Jellie said that she welcomed community feedback on the proposed budget.

"If you freeze rates, which would be wonderful, in reality if that happens something else has to be compromised and that possibly would be services to the community," she said. "It's a very difficult decision."

No decision on the budget or rate rise would be made at Monday's council meeting where councillors are expected to vote to send it out for public comment and feedback.

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