New London — Call it the first battleground of the 2015 New London mayoral race: the nearly 600 line items that constitute the city's budgeted spending.

Already, the two Democrats vying for their party’s nomination — Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio and City Councilor Michael Passero — have waged a war of words over the budget, with each accusing the other of presenting a dishonest budget and the mayor charging Passero with proposing "very unethical" budget cuts.

The campaign for mayor largely consisted of the two men massing war chests until Finizio presented the City Council with his proposed city budget of $90.37 million, which represented $46.6 million for general government, $43.7 million for the Board of Education and a tax rate increase of 12.54 percent.

Passero, who has a vote on the council’s Finance Committee, said the mayor’s budget was not “a particularly honest document,” and pledged that he would not vote any budget out of that committee unless it contained no increase in general government spending. He countered with $2,748,752 in proposed cuts from Finizio’s general government budget and another $440,000 in cuts from the Board of Education budget.

The Finance Committee voted unanimously to recommend the full council approve Passero’s amended budget, which after two adjustments made by the full council now totals $87,240,845 and would necessitate a 6 percent tax rate hike.

Before the council met to vote on the first of three readings of the budget Thursday, Finizio vowed to veto Passero’s amended budget if passed by the City Council, calling it a “dishonest” budget.

The mayor said Passero slashed contractually mandated uniform allowances, benefits for retirees with disabilities, health insurance funding, pension payments and lease payments for the city’s salt storage shed, among others items to the tune of $1.2 million.

“The numbers are the numbers; if there are fixed costs that you have to pay, you have to pay for them,” Finizio said this week.

In detailing his disputes with the amended budget, Finizio pointed out that Passero, a city firefighter, cut a smaller percentage out of the fire department's budget than any other department from which he cut.

Having a sitting city councilor who is also a city firefighter take a light touch with the budgetary scalpel to his own employer is "very unethical," the mayor said, and "represents the borderline corruption that exists when you have public employees sitting on a city council." Passero and two other current city councilors are employees of the city or Board of Education.

"Mr. Passero has proposed a budget that keeps the fire department, our largest department, almost completely whole in their funding request, leaves four vacancies that we are still going to hire in that department while gutting almost every other department," Finizio said. "I think it is very clear by the actions he took that he is benefiting his employer rather than being fair across the board."

Passero said he did not cut funding for four vacant positions in the fire department because the mayor has pledged to hire for those positions, and his amended budget contains only enough funding for the 16 people required per shift.

"Of course he's going to say that. That's pure politics," Passero said. "That's pure politics."

If the council overrides his veto and approves Passero’s budget nonetheless, Finizio said he would be forced to lay off city employees.

“Once you have literally taken every single spending line item down to the bare bones,” he said, “the only thing you’re left to cut are bodies.”

Passero, whose stated goal is to pass a budget that does not increase city spending or require layoffs, said the mayor was making a hollow threat by suggesting he would lay off city workers.

“You’re recording me so I can’t tell you how I feel about that,” he told this reporter. “We have budgeted money for every employee, for benefits for every employee. If that guy touches an employee, it’s on his head, it’s not because we didn’t budget the money for our employees.”

When asked about the political calculus of his election-year budget, Finizio said he proposed a forthright budget that would accurately fund city services, political consequences be damned.

“Politics destroyed New London’s budget, and I’m not going to play politics with the budget. Period,” Finizio said. “Vote me out, I don’t care. I’m not going to ruin the city to save myself politically.”

And as for the Finance Committee’s unanimous endorsement of Passero’s amended budget, Finizio said he thinks the other city councilors are “scared” and are trying to respond to the hordes of voters who have voiced their displeasure with the prospect of even the slightest tax increase.

“I think they’re sensing that, politically, Mr. Passero is riding high at the moment because big tax increases aren’t popular,” he said. “And they want to be popular as well because they’re up for re-election this year.”

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung