Local Government Association of Tasmania chief executive Allan Garcia said on Wednesday that he didn’t believe councils would be too worried about the prospect of such an audit in light of news that Tasmanian Auditor-General Mike Blake might consider such an investigation in the future.

It comes on the back of reports of possible misuse of credit cards by some Hobart City Council aldermen, as well as lax policy around keeping proper records in the form of receipts.

It was found that Hobart aldermen had racked up expenses totaling $135,000 since 2012.

‘‘It’s not a problem – only where there’s been a possible problem identified in a council but there really should be no issue for councils,’’ Mr Garcia said.

However, he  described Hobart’s procedure of no requirement to show receipts for purchases as ‘‘odd’’ and with a ‘‘lenient approach’’.

Launceston City Council general manager Robert Dobrzynski said his council would welcome any audit, yet actually led the state in establishing an independent chair and members for a dedicated council audit committee, which has now become a legislative requirement. Only Mayor Albert van Zetten has a credit card for official use and it is audited.

Launceston aldermen have the same base allowance as those in Hobart – aldermen each receive $33,173, the deputy mayor receives an additional $21,424 and the mayor $82,934, as of November 1, 2014.

Mr Dobrzynski said aldermen were entitled to claim back expenses such as travel, but only with his prior consent, and reimbursements were also audited.

‘‘The City of Launceston is in favour of transparency, which is why we have opened our SPPC meetings to the public, stream our ordinary council meetings live online and operate our community engagement platform, Your Voice Your Launceston, which has more than 1300 registered users – among many other initiatives,’’ he said.

Mr Blake said he would only make a decision as to whether to go ahead with a statewide audit of councils once the internal Hobart investigation was complete.

The auditor-general regularly looks at councils, most recently releasing the 2013-14 report on local governments in February.