Opposition councillors said the cost was "outrageous" at a time when the council was cutting services.
Bankruptcy filings may also prove to be more palatable politically than cutting services.
It would be costly and complicated to integrate grass cutting services, he said.
Demonstrators at East Sussex County Council's headquarters, in Lewes, also objected to the council spending the money while cutting services.
People can easily move around within a metropolitan area, which allows them to choose from a wide variety of different hair-cutting services.
But the county council says it has got its priorities wrong doing this while also cutting services such as Dial-A-Ride for people with mobility problems.
He said the reduction in numbers was down to a "double whammy" of its biggest operator, Air Southwest, cutting services and the effects of the economic downturn.
No one could have foreseen Iceland's financial collapse, counters Mr Freer, and cutting services in sheltered housing would permit the council to provide an equal level of support to all older people.
According to the National Audit Office only a quarter of the claimed savings were fairly represented while the second efficiency programme launched just last year is "cutting services to claim efficiencies" - and has "acute" measurement problems.
Too many discussions revolve around cutting services.
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Airlines in Brazil were some of the last to start cutting services and charge extra for basics that passengers had grown accustomed to, like being the lucky guy who gets the extra leg room at no extra charge.
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This covers services such as school transport - and will mean local authorities cutting education services or else finding savings from other budgets.
There is disagreement in Congress on whether legislation stops the Postal Service from cutting Saturday services.
He warned of "unavoidable austerity ahead" and said cutting youth services should be "manifestly indefensible".
Cutting public services, at least in Europe, is going to be deeply unpopular when it becomes intensely personal.
Chowchilla already has axed more that one-third of the municipal payroll while cutting such services as a swimming program.
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Also, a plurality (42%) of moderates is more likely believe a government default can be avoided by just cutting inessential services.
Denver brew-pub-owner-turned-mayor John Hickenlooper earned his reelection landslide by cleaning up a budget shortfall without raising taxes or cutting city services.
During a time when PC manufacturers were driving down costs and cutting back services, Best Buy took a long view of the changes in the market and enhanced the value of customer service.
Money could also be saved by cutting rural bus services, and scaling down grass cutting and roads maintenance, including gritting.
These high-margin services are breathing new life into the business, as well as helping push the development of new cutting-edge services.
The operator of the cross-Solent hovercraft passenger service is considering cutting peak time services.
Tax receipts plunge, giving the government a stark choice of cutting back on services, raising taxes or increased deficit spending.
Printing money is an invisible tax on savings, much easier to initiate, than, say, raising taxes or cutting back on services and entitlements.
As airlines stave off bankruptcy by cutting amenities and services to their economy classes, there seems to be a shield around the almighty first class.
At the same time, cutting necessary social services generates false savings.
Alan Rhodes, leader of the county council's opposition Labour group, said it was "insensitive" to spend millions of pounds of public money when the authority was cutting jobs and services.
Authorities will have the option of cutting benefit paid, or trying to fill the funding gap by scrapping the 50% discounts for second homes and empty properties - or cutting spending on services.
In the half-yearly financial report, Securicor chairman Lord Sharman concluded that it was clear there was a weakness within the larger world economies with customers either cutting back on services or delaying purchasing decisions.
As tax revenues have fallen over the past three years of recession, and austerity became the default policy of local governments, the public sector has been steadily hemorrhaging employees and cutting back on services.
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