SNP ministers were left red-faced after it emerged some councils would get less cash than promised in the Budget.
Town hall leaders were told the size of their 2017/18 grant for day-to-day spending on Thursday – but some of them found that sum had shrunk just days later.
Dundee City Council will receive £208,000 less than originally promised, compared with £381,000 at Perth & Kinross. Angus and Fife found their allocation had gone up.
Earlier, Holyrood’s independent experts called out the SNP Government over figures it used to claim they are swelling council coffers.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Alex Rowley, who is a Fife MSP, said: “It’s bad enough that SNP ministers are cutting £327million from local services, but to have to correct their own figures to individual councils within a few days is farcical.”
Councils across Tayside and Fife will get £28m less than last year for day-to-day spending.
Mr Mackay said any reduction in grants is more than compensated by the complete funding package for councils, which includes NHS money from health and social care integration.
But the Scottish Parliament Information Service said cash for social care was “already included in the health budget totals and therefore contributes to the real terms growth in the health budget”.
Murdo Fraser, for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “In short, the Finance Secretary has signed off on the kind of creative accountancy that would make Fred Goodwin blush.”
The local government budget has been cut by £327m (3.2%) on last year’s figures, SPICe reports, before the impact of the “other sources of support” are included.
That includes health and social care integration, which allows councils to benefit from NHS cash as part of a drive to improve co-ordination between health boards and local authorities.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The 2017-18 draft Budget local government finance settlement figures, taken together with the opportunity to raise additional council tax, provide a package of measures that confer additional spending power to support local government services of £241 million or 2.3% based on the local government finance settlement presentation.”
“In addition to their core grant, councils will receive their share of £120 million for schools, £107 million for social care and £111 million in additional revenue from reform of council tax bands.”