The emergency services levy is an annual impost on local governments and insurance companies, but the sharp rise - albeit for a very worthy cause - has left councils scrambling to find extra money in their 2019/20 budgets.

Bellingen Shire Council has received an invoice of $477,611 for its emergency services levy contribution, which is $90,095 more than last year - an unanticipated increase of 23 per cent.

Councillors were told at Wednesday's meeting that unless pleas for the state government to fund the first 12 months of the extra cost are successful, cuts to planned initiatives or services are inevitable.

"We have no fat on our budget," mayor Dominic King said. "Something will have to give."

Legislation designed to address a shortfall in workers' compensation was passed in November, but local government was not told it would have to cover the cost via the emergency services levy and only found out this month how much it would be.

The additional funds are for volunteer and career firefighters who are diagnosed with one of 12 specific work-related cancers.

Councillors were informed that "Proportional to council revenue, the extra $90,095.30 Bellingen Shire Council is being asked to pay is a large amount and the impact of this unplanned cost will certainly be felt by the community".

"We would have to look at our budget and some of those roads we had marked for resealing, we'd have to say - let's take the $90,000 from there," Cr King said.

The meeting resolved to support Local Government NSW's calls for the NSW government to cover the initial additional $19m increase for the first year and to redesign the funding mechanism to make it fairer.

Councils are also calling for the proposed property-based emergency services levy to be reintroduced.