Essential services including bin collection and street cleaning face potential cuts as Gloucester City Council grapples with a £1.5m financial shortfall.
Finance officials said the "challenging" predicament was due to the absence of audited or unaudited accounts stretching back to the 2021 cyber attack.
The local authority has been operating on manually compiled accounting records and financial reports following the cyber incident.
READ MORE: {}
These documents informed assessments of the authority's financial wellbeing and underpinned crucial budgetary decisions under both the previous and current administrations.
However, the £1.5m overspend is believed to have been uncovered by the council's newly appointed finance chief, who has earned recognition for tackling the issue whilst operating under immense pressure.
The council has approved increases to parking fees, a comprehensive review of the authority's charges and an examination of revenue-generating opportunities, alongside reassessing the business strategies for Gloucester Guildhall, the city museum and Blackfriars Priory.
But Labour group leader Terry Pullen (L, Moreland) has asked for a guarantee that vital frontline services will remain protected.
"In view of the crisis facing this city and the £1.5m hole in finances, can you give us a guarantee that essential, fronline services will not be cut and not be affected?".
Most Read
Council leader Jeremy Hilton (LD, Kingsholm and Wotton) said at the meeting at North Warehouse it remained their objective to maintain the council's frontline provision. But he stated that determining where savings might be achieved remains a matter for future deliberation.
"We need to look at the pros and cons of where we make the savings," he said.
"We need to make that assessment. I can't give you a 100 per cent guarantee but frontline services are quite clearly the most important thing we run and want to protect.
"The first thing that should be done is to increase the car parking fees to the rate of inflation. They've been frozen for two years."
Cllr Pullen emphasised these are vital services the public anticipates.
"Things like waste and recycling, street cleaning and housing," he said. "Those are really essential services, surely we've got to protect them."
Cllr Hilton concurred and suggested they might deliver identical services more cost-effectively by restructuring operations.
Don’t miss
"We need to look at the options and the details," he said.
"Quite clearly, we don't want to see the grass [cutting] being cut, and we don't want to see any other services being cut."