Time will tell, of course.

But it is beginning to look like maybe New London's transition to a government led by a full-time mayor, instead of a professional manager reporting to the City Council, was a mistake.

It could be that this mayor's oversized ego, incompetence and aversion to compromise is the problem. Maybe the city could find happiness and government balance with someone else in the mayor's seat.

On the other hand, the latest trading of barbs about the new city budget is a good example of the dysfunction that has settled over city government.

In the old days, when the City Council hired and directed a paid professional manager, the budget process wasn't a prickly game of political brinkmanship.

The current councilors, for instance, unanimously rejected Mayor Daryl Finizio's opening budget proposal, with its whopping 12.5 percent tax increase, and agreed on a somewhat more modest plan, with a tax increase closer to 6 percent.

Then the mayor countered — by email, not in person — with a prickly response that suggested an increase of 7.27 percent.

The mayor's arrogant Monday email to councilors even ridiculed them, suggesting he could arrange to have the state comptroller come down to New London to explain budget basics, which he added "would be an embarrassment" for them.

When the council, which was given authority over the city's purse strings in the newest city charter, had a paid professional manager, they got answers and accommodation as they asked questions and navigated a complicated budget process to respond to constituents and try to keep taxes down.

They got cooperation, not condescension.

Of course the budget deliberations are just the latest example of the malaise that has settled over city government. The Finizio years, the first under the new charter, have been a disaster.

The police chief, thanks to the mayor, has been out of work for almost a year, still on the payroll, and she seems headed to collect an unnecessarily large financial settlement, because of the mayor's bungling.

Expensive litigation and rising insurance premiums for legal settlements have indeed been a hallmark of the Finizio years.

One lawsuit that is still unwinding seeks compensation for the unnecessary death of a city resident, crushed while trying to dump a couch at the transfer station, a facility that had already been cited for significant safety hazards.

No one was ever disciplined for the death. When a whistleblower employee subsequently notified the state of new safety violations at the station, he says he was denied overtime work and disciplined.

City sidewalks go unplowed in the winter. Trash collects in the summer. The city-owned Lighthouse Inn, once grand, sits abandoned, attracting vandals instead of buyers.

Mayor Finizio's experiment in hiring major city department heads with no experience has proved to be a colossal failure.

I wonder what magic dust the mayor plans to sprinkle in voters' eyes in the mayoral election?

Mayor Finizio has suggested he may try to run on a Working Families ballot line if he doesn't win the Democratic primary. But to do that, he would have to seek and earn that party's endorsement and then collect signatures before the Democratic primary occurs.

Working Families supports a lot of progressive policies, such as a higher minimum wage, to address income inequality. But I am not sure they would favor the mayor's enormous proposed property tax hikes, which would harm a lot of struggling, working, middle-class families.

Last time I spoke to the mayor, he suggested he's not in the race for himself, that he could return to practicing law from home and make twice as much as he does serving as mayor.

Maybe that's the backup plan, in the event the magic dust doesn't work.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct