Angus Council has spent £783,000 in the past three years to plug teaching gaps.
Some pupils are being forced to travel to neighbouring schools to pursue their chosen subjects while college lecturers have also been drafted in to overcome the teacher shortages.
In 2016-17 the local authority spent £276,998 on supply teachers, which dropped to £227,825 in 2017-18 before going up again to £280,217 last year.
The biggest expenditure across all three years was on secondary supply costs which were £184,895, £139,560 and £169,022 respectively.
North East Scotland Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles said: “Teaching shortages are having a huge impact on our schools in Angus and there are no signs of improvement.
“Spending on primary school supply teachers is already higher for the year to May than it was in previous school years.
“What makes matters worse is that we recently learned that college lecturers were being brought in to fill the gap in secondary education.
“That makes it far harder for schools to deliver the same level of teaching across all class rooms and some pupils may find that they are not able to achieve their potential without the specific skills that trained teachers provide.
“Angus Council are working hard to overcome those challenges but the Scottish Government has completely failed to get a grip of the situation. If Ministers are serious about making a difference, the first thing they should do is give teachers a radical uplift in pay and conditions in order to increase recruitment and retention.”
Supply teachers are hired when schools cannot fill teaching posts and can charge almost £200 a day in some parts of the country.
A freedom of information request also found teaching supply costs in Dundee were £1.4m in 2016-17, £1.3m in 2017-18 and £1.2m last year,
An Angus Council spokeswoman said, “Supply staff may be used for a range of reasons, including filling vacancies on a temporary basis, providing cover for staff absence and providing cover for staff to undertake SQA duties or professional development.
“We continue work to identify and fill vacancies.”
Dundee City Council said it makes use of supply teachers to plug vacancies.
A council spokesman said: “The children and families service closely monitors teacher numbers in all the city’s schools and takes prompt action to fill vacant posts.
“Supply teachers have been used consistently over the years as part of this process.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said teacher numbers in Scottish schools are at their highest since 2010 but recognised the “teacher recruitment challenges”.
He said: “That is why we have increased targets for recruitment into initial teacher education and created new routes to make it more practical and flexible for people to access courses.”
