South Ayrshire leader Martin Dowey has warned that the state of the council finances will only get worse.
And he has called for a freeze on recruiting non-essential staff while instructing officers to concentrate on essential services only.
He told a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday: "With the financial pressures and cost-of-living crisis, things are going to continue to get worse.
"I would like to ask officers to plan a freeze on non-essential staff and also ask officers to focus on essential spend only.
"I appreciate there is an offer away to the unions, but things will get worse. I know the [finance] team will be on the ball, but we need this to be conveyed to departments."
Councillor Dowey's comment came as finance chief Tim Baulk told cabinet there was a projected overspend for the 2022/23 financial year of £1.65 million identified in the first financial quarter.
Mr Baulk said he contacted service directors to advise them that they were required to bring their budgets back into line by the end of March 2023 and should 'limit spend wherever possible' to do so.
Girvan councillor Alec Clark raised his concerns with the report and highlighted the financial position of two council services.
Property maintenance's projected underspend of £1.166m on staffing is a result of the 'high number of vacancies' within the service.
The knock-on effect was a £2.76m overspend due to an 'increased use of sub-contractors, which is mainly related to the high level of vacancies'.
A projected overspend of £378,000 in agency payments is also due to vacancies.
Cllr Clark raised his concerns with these figures, along with an overspend of £2.238m in neighbourhood services, and said: "I realise there are reasons and rationales behind this.
"However, given the size of the overspend, it would be good if members were made aware, at an earlier date, if there is going to be a problem further down the line, rather than wait until it is complete.
"These figures don't happen overnight, they happen over period of time. I do think that members need to be kept aware when the variation is so significant."
Cllr Clark also pointed out that the projected rent arrears of current council tenants had increased to £1.179m, a 56 per cent increase on the figures in March.
He said: "I realise we are living in a cost-of-living crisis and we need to give as much support to tenants as possible. However, that is a fairly significant sum."
The cabinet agreed to transfer an underspend in employee costs and the 'over recovery' of income to pay for related increases in sub-contractors and agencies.
Councillors also heard that they had received additional funds from the Scottish Government which hadn't been included in the March budget.
This includes:
- £5.462m for social care
- £4.958m to meet cost of council tax cost-of-living rebate
- £265,000 for pupil equity fund
- £1.337m for discretionary housing payments
- £704,000 for teachers pay award
- £829,000 for expansion of free school meals
- £403,000 for school holiday meals
- £142,000 for removal of music tuition fees
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