In the agenda for Bega Valley Shire Council's next meeting, Cr Russell Fitzpatrick said over the past several months requests from the Bega Valley Shire Residents and Ratepayers Association (BVSRRA) have been at a level that has impacted staffing capacity, particularly in finance.

He said there had been "repeated requests on the same matters" and a number of recent items requested financial records from 10 years ago for items such as councillor expenses and electricity charges by site and item.

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"There is no evidence that any of these pieces of correspondence have been considered by anyone other than the author or the president of the Bega Valley Ratepayers Association," he said.

When approached for comment, BVSRRA secretary/treasurer John Richardson said he would be responding in writing to Cr Fitzpatrick regarding the matter and would not comment any further.

Council's general manager Leanne Barnes estimated researching the information for requests from the ratepayers association cost up to two-and-a-half days of staff time each week.

She said one person coordinated the request then staff from specific parts of the organisation depending on what the request related to, for instance finance, had to be taken away from their tasks to collect information for a response.

"Some weeks might not be two-and-a-half, other weeks may be three days," she said.

"It's not every week, it's not consistent."

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Ms Barnes said council has no problem answering the questions, but currently staff are working for the end of the financial year, preparing for auditors and had to focus on the budget.

As council is "not flushed with resources", she said staff would have more time to respond to information requests later in the year.

In a notice of motion submitted for council's meeting on October 30, Cr Fitzpatrick said council staff should only respond to the association within the priorities of council's resources.

Also, he said any items from the association requiring current or historical financial data should be refused until council staff were in a position to reply.

Speaking to Australian Community Media, he said essentially council staff should reply when they had time.

"At the end of the day we need all our staff getting things right and reporting correctly," he said.

"I appreciate the ratepayers association wanting to ask questions. I've got nothing against them.

"But how much time should we be spending on it?"

In the agenda he said it was "unacceptable" a number of reporting errors had occurred in the annual reporting from 2018 to July 2019, so staff needed to be able to focus on their current workload and not direct resources to answering the association's correspondence.