Presentations dragged on through the night at City Hall before wrapping up early Friday as hundreds of Torontonians had their say over proposed budget cuts.

Mayor Rob Ford asked citizens to come downtown to talk to his executive committee about the budget.

In total, 168 people spoke during the more than 20 hours of presentations at the meeting.

The presentations began before noon on Thursday and did not finish until the last speaker wrapped up just before 7 am. In total, 344 speakers were on the list, but many refused to endure the marathon session.

Passionate pleas about saving library services and bus routes were offset by some more bizarre moments including an early-morning presentation by a sock puppet.

It marked the longest continuous session in Toronto council's history.

Under normal procedure, each speaker is usually given five minutes to address councillors, but because of the lengthy lineup of speakers, the committee passed a motion to limit speaking time to only three minutes.

Ford praised his council members at the conclusion of the record-setting meeting.

"Everyone pat yourselves on the back. Because you all did a great job today and we are going to get this city straightened out," he said. "So thank you very much. I am very, very proud of each and every one of you."

The meeting came at the end of an exercise in which independent auditors identified which services were essential to the running of the city — deemed "core" services — and which were not.

City-hired consultants KPMG identified a number of areas where cuts could be made in all departments at the city amid a looming $774 million budget shortfall.

The city's budget chief, still bleary-eyed a few hours after the all-night debate came to a close, said the city has no choice but to slash its spending.

Every program remains "on the table" but it's not yet clear where the axe will fall, Mike Del Grande told reporters Friday afternoon.

"It's a process and we've not completed the process," he said.

Some of the most contentious suggestions — laying off police officers, closing libraries, major cuts to TTC service and closing some of the city's popular zoo and other wildlife attractions — were discussed.

But some councillors were critical of the procedure, saying the exercise should never have happened.

"It's time for the mayor to present a budget. His budget. It's his job. And then we can take it back into our communities … we can have the conversations perhaps not in 24 hours, but over 24 days …" said Coun. Adam Vaughan.

"But until that happens we are in big trouble. It's the executive's turn to talk about it now."

In the end, councillors voted to push all of the suggested cuts to an Executive Committee meeting on Sept. 19.

With files from The Canadian Press