New London — In response to the City Council’s unanimous override of his budget veto on Monday night, Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio on Tuesday ordered an immediate freeze on hiring for vacant city jobs, an action he said is necessary to correct a deficit in the council’s budget.

“The budget adopted by the City Council underfunds mandated expenses by hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Finizio said in a statement. “As Chief Executive Officer, it is my responsibility to ensure that we pay legal obligations including our health insurance premium, our worker’s compensation, and our disability insurance, while simultaneously balancing the budget.”

The hiring freeze — which was issued in the form of the ninth executive order of Finizio’s term — precludes hiring to fill four vacant positions in the fire department, four vacant positions in the police department, two or three vacant positions in the department of public works and a “full-time” chief administrative officer in the mayor’s office, Finizio said.

Councilor Michael Passero, the main author of the council’s budget, said he does not think Finizio’s executive order will have much of an effect on the council or its budget.

“I don’t think it changes a thing. He’s always had a sort of de facto hiring freeze in place anyway,” Passero said. “We budget for police officers year after year and in the last couple months he’s finally hired a couple of police officers, but every year we consistently budget for police officers and he never hires them.”

The executive order also orders the city finance director and treasurer to “take all legal steps available to them to ensure the mandated legal obligations of the city are met,” Finizio said.

“How about if he had told them to cooperate with the City Council for the two months we were working with the city budget trying to achieve our goal of a 0 (percent) increase?” Passero asked rhetorically. “That would have been helpful.”

On Monday night, the City Council soundly rejected Finizio’s veto of the $43.9 million general government budget the council approved unanimously last month.

All seven councilors voted to override Finizio’s veto, a vote that received a standing ovation from about two dozen residents and property owners watching from the gallery.

The budget, which now becomes law without mayoral approval, includes $43,919,919 in expenditures on the general government side — about $95,600 less than the current year’s budget — increases overall city and education spending by about 1.30 percent, and necessitates a tax rate increase of roughly 3.90 percent.

Finizio also took the opportunity Tuesday to go on the offensive against Passero, his political opponent for the Democratic nomination in the upcoming mayoral election, prompting one reporter to ask whether the mayor’s press conference — held in his City Hall office and during regular city work hours — was an official or campaign speech.

“Mike Passero has proven definitively, not just in this recent action but in his actions over the last four years, that he is unqualified to be mayor of the city of New London,” Finizio said, “because he fails the first primary test, the ability to run our finances and balance our budget.”

Passero dismissed Finizio’s criticisms as purely political rhetoric.

“The voters of the city of New London will decide who is qualified to be mayor,” Passero said. “And the voters of the city of New London are tired of the hysteria, they’re tired of hearing that the sky is falling, they’re tired of the cronyism. They simply want competent and professional management back in charge of the city.”

Passero also took exception to Finizio’s claim that the City Council passed a “political budget and not a financial one” as a result of “a political deal ... made between the councilors in a backroom.”

“I challenge him to tell me where the factual foundation of that statement is. That is an absolute falsehood,” Passero said. “What happened here is that we represent the citizens and our constituents came to us ... we were all getting the same message from our constituents, that after a 20 percent tax increase over the last three years we cannot take it anymore.”

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung