Corporate services and finance director Bob Roach's quarterly budget review shows that council had set aside $139,582 for legal fees from July 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013.

But the year-to-date expenditure came in at $649,336 $509,754 above budget.

In the report, Mr Roach notes that two cases, in particular, caught council off-guard.

"[Year-to-date] actual exceeds budgeted figure mainly due to legal cost associated with Trackcorp lawsuit of $507,047 and Local Government Financial Services [LGFS] appeal of $71,560 were not budgeted for as management believed council would win the cases and be awarded costs," he writes in the explanation.

General manager David Sherley yesterday defended the blowout.

He said the Trackcorp matter was a case of council defending an action taken against it, while council had already won the first part of its action against LGFS but was awaiting the result of an appeal process.

"Council would hope to recoup a large proportion from the LGFS action and Trackcorp is a case of us defending a claim made against us," he said.

Mayor Gary Rush said council tried to learn from every instance of legal action.

“Council is preparing an analysis of some of these court cases we have been involved in recently in terms of what are the lessons we have learned and what are the processes and procedures we can put in place for the future,” he said.

“The minimum expectation of ratepayers would be for council to ensure we learn from these interactions.”