Cr Bill McClenaghan said the council, as cemetery trustees, had made a mess.

"We are a cemetery trust and we've made a bit of a mess in one of them," he said.

"We cut (the tree) off at the base, piled it up and set fire to it.

"It's just another nail in the coffin."

At the meeting, Cr Heather Mutimer said the contractor's actions resulted from a lack of communication.

Cr Mutimer said the tree, which was cut down in June, "was not about to fall over and was not an immediate risk or danger".

The tree was one of a number cut down at the cemetery without community consultation or an arborist's report.

A council report has since found the tree, which marked the grave site of Bullarto resident Peter Dwyer's ancestors, could have been saved with weight reduction.

However, a group of four, including the contractor and the council's operations manager Andrew Bourke, made the decision to cut down the blackwood.

It was then chopped up and burnt.

The report also found the "burn-off heap was inappropriately sized and located".

Cr Mutimer said that, as trustee of the Bullarto Cemetery, the council should have provided a report before any works were done.

"There should have been far better communications," she said.

"There was process and they were not in a position to make that decision.

"It's very, very unsatisfactory."

Cr Mutimer said she had stood for council in 2003 "because of these issues".

"But they are still continuing and that's why this culture in the Hepburn Shire Council is not good enough.

"No longer, in this day and age, can we have this attitude to vegetation."

The council will provide $1100 to be shared by landcare groups in the shire and will also be "carrying out appropriate offsets".