The council has abolished the limits in a significant rewrite of the expenses policy, which governs elected officials on everything from out-of-pocket expenses to childcare and disability support.

A previous 2015 policy stipulated $2000 for conferences, seminars and meetings but lacked language about expectations and responsibilities of councillors.

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The newest policy flips that arrangement, putting the emphasis on councillors to show their claims are responsible and adding formal avenues of appeal to the city's chief executive officer.

The council has also scrapped ceilings on costs for councillor training, which could be as high as $5000 annually for those in their first two years as an elected official.

Instead, spending will change year-to-year depending on council decisions, which will be partly shaped by consultations between mayors and councillors about individual professional development needs.

The city's corporate performance director Andrew Cooney said some newly elected councillors arrived with more professional training and experiences than others.

"A dollar limit doesn't always talk about the value you might get from a course so we've been looking at having more emphasis on the reasonability of the expense ... and proving the expense is justified," he said.

He said flexibility could help the incoming council, which might be comprised of people from all walks of life and who might need different levels of training.

Mr Cooney said the decision was not influenced by the amount current or past councillors had spent, noting that the current council had been conservative with expense spending during its term.

Despite that, the city has bolstered oversight of councillors' expenses as well as officials empowered to make decisions on their behalf.

Regular reports both to fellow councillors and the public will now also be sent to the council's audit and risk committee - an increasingly influential group of community members and councillors tasked with reviewing policies and operations.

The committee's powers have grown in recent years in line both with state government reforms and the council's push to be as transparent as possible, Mr Cooney said.

It is not the only body monitoring operations. the council has independent auditors and can be overseen by groups like the Victorian ombudsman and the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission.

The expenses reforms have come as councils change policies to comply with the newly modernised Local Government Act but would have happened in an election year regardless of statewide reforms.

The council is obliged to review the expenses policy 12 months out from an election to give candidates and the community clear expectations about how an incoming council will operate, Mr Cooney said.

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