Fife Council will reject the SNP’s budget offer unless it radically changes, with senior figures claiming it amounts to a cash cut of more than £24 million.
The depute leader of the Labour-run authority argued there are “too many unanswered questions” over the financial offer, which she said would lead to job losses, to back it as things stand.
Cllr Lesley Laird said she wrote to Finance Secretary Derek Mackay explaining: “Fife Council is not in a position to refuse or accept the settlement on offer”.
She added: “There are simply too many unanswered questions and implied conditions with no explanation.
“Despite the Finance Minister’s attempted claims to the contrary this proposed Budget is an SNP ‘made in Scotland’ cut to local public services.”
She said Fife’s grant reduction is £24.3 million or 3.9% in cash terms, which means “even further cuts to services and jobs”.
Councils are seeing their core grants reduced by £327m in the draft budget. But the SNP administration say councils will be better off when the whole funding package is taken into account.
Earlier, the Scottish Conservatives accused Mr Mackay of “bully-boy” tactics in pressing councils to accept budget settlements.
Mr Mackay told local authorities they would receive a “revised and inevitably less favourable offer” if they failed to sign up on time.
A Scottish Government spokesman said local government had been treated “very fairly despite the cuts to the Scottish budget from the UK Government”.
He said the cabinet secretary’s letter is clear on the “likely outcome for those authorities not agreeing the offer in the first instance”.
“It is now up to each individual local authority to accept the full package of measures and benefits,” the spokesman said.
