Between the start of September 2018 and the end of August 2019, $41,777 was spent dealing with complaints lodged to Griffith City Council about the conduct of the city's councillors and general manager while over the same period in 2017-18, council spent $98,350 dealing with complaints.

During the reporting period five complaints were lodged with council, while 12 were finalised.

There were six breaches of the code of conduct, with one councillor censured under the Local Government Act 1993 while another breach saw a councillor referred to the Office of Local Government for further action.

Mayor John Dal Broi said he was pleased to see the costs associated with dealing with the complaints drop this year and expects the cost will continue to drop.

"We're pleased now as it puts us in the ballpark in regards to other local governments," Councillor Dal Broi said.

"Some of these codes from when the complaint is lodged to when they are finalised go up to 12 months.

"All going forward, unless something drastic happens, that figure will continue to drop."

A report into the amount of complaints and costs was tabled at Tuesday's council meeting, fulfilling a requirement to report the amount each year.

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Councillor Brian Simpson asked council how many investigators were used during the reporting period to investigate code of conduct complaints.

Council's economic and organisational development director Shireen Donaldson said council has a current panel of six investigators but only one investigator was used during the reporting period.

"I've used one over the course of these ones here because of the nature of the complaints that came in," Ms Donaldson said.

"I have a scale that I use in terms of price and expertise and these ones [complaints] related to one particular company."

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