Wollongong City Council spent nearly $5 million on staff overtime in 2013 and has longer, less productive meetings than other councils do.
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But the council's employees took fewer sick days than the average and the council had a lower staff turnover than most others.
These were the results of a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey into 72 councils' operations and management performance, which have been labelled as "positive" by Wollongong council officers.
According to the report, which went before councillors on Monday, only eight of the 72 councils surveyed had a greater percentage of overtime costs than Wollongong, which spent $4.9 million in the 2013 financial year.
This was 6.9 per cent of the council's total salary and wages spend, while the median was 4 per cent.
"Overtime can be an efficient way to have experienced resources on hand when you need them, but if not managed carefully, it can easily become a drain on council funds," the report said.
Council officers said the organisation's 2014-15 annual plan included "a specific project on reviewing this spend, in particular work practices and rostering" as part of its continued focus on financial sustainability.
The report also showed Wollongong's council meetings were generally longer than other councils' and passed fewer resolutions.
"The survey results show that the median council meeting duration (of around 2.5 hours) produced around 27 resolutions," the report said.
In contrast, Wollongong's average council meeting lasted about three hours and passed fewer than 20 resolutions.
In good news, local staff were healthier than average - half took fewer than 5.1 sick days each year; at other councils, half the staff took fewer than six sick days.
Wollongong also had a lower-than-average staff turnover of 6 per cent, compared with 11 per cent at other councils - but only four other councils had more staff leave after less than one year of service.
The Wollongong council had a higher-than-average proportion of Baby Boomers (57 per cent compared with 51 per cent), which has blown out the amount of accrued long-service leave.
More than half - 52 per cent - of the local workforce had more than three months' long-service leave owing; only 28 per cent of the surveyed workforce had the same amount of leave owed.
