Council has been strongly advocating for a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility for the region, however funding from the NSW government is needed to make it a reality. Council has already committed to providing the land and the federal government has promised $3 million.

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Cr Lawrence says council spent $100,000 for a business case to be developed and will spend another $30,000 on the campaign.

"I sense in the community very widespread support for that campaign, I think it's pretty much absolute and I've never had anyone come to me and say that is somehow a misallocation of resources or that there's more important things that we should be spending $130,000 on," he said.

The deputy mayor attributes the $9 million in council savings across the past three years as the reason why they have been able to spend money on the campaign.

He said the savings gave council money "around the edges to do unusual things" like the Dubbo Needs a Rehab campaign.

Councillor John Ryan called for council to calculate the savings made since the 2017 election.

"I didn't know what to expect but I knew there were a lot of services that council didn't put out competitive bids for. If there's competition, that means people are forced to sharpen their pencils to stay in the game," he said.

The councillor also hit out at people who had been criticising council, and himself, over the savings.

"You can find my phone number on the council website. I'd much prefer people would ring me up for a discussion on this rather than skulk around in the background cackling like fools," Cr Ryan said.

He said process of saving money had "only just begun" and by working smarter it was going to be of great benefit to future generations.