Governor Pataki’s budget proposal offered Mayor Bloomberg little in the way of financial help in his struggle to fill a $3 billion city budget gap at a time in which he is trying to convince voters to give him another four years in City Hall.

In his 40-minute speech from Albany, Governor Pataki offered about $280 million more in education funding for New York City and other troubled school districts, $19 billion in funding for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and a cap on Medicaid spending increases, which could be difficult for the city to juggle in the short-run.

Mr. Bloomberg had been hoping – publicly at least – for more. He had asked for $1 billion for the city’s schools after a special masters commission ruled that students in New York City had been shortchanged by the state and needed more money from Albany to get the same quality education other students in the state receive.

Similarly, the mayor asked for some $27 billion for the MTA to help pay for new railcars and buses, and expansion of some of its lines. Experts said that the $19 billion earmarked in the governor’s budget will be enough to keep the transportation authority running, but won’t be enough to pay for its expansion plans.

Mr. Bloomberg’s initial reaction was predictable: he was careful to tip-toe around the issues instead of antagonizing the governor.

“I think the allocation for funding is much too low and we’ll talk about that,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday morning during an event in Brooklyn. “I will testify up in Albany on Monday and lay out the specifics of the problems we have with the budget and where we’d like to see changes.”

The response was a softball compared with the salvos traditionally fired in Albany’s direction from City Hall after budgets are unveiled. Previous administrations have made wrangling with state legislators a blood sport. Mr. Bloomberg has preferred to keep his disagreements with Mr. Pataki out of the public eye.

“The governor’s budget shows that the mayor’s speak-softly-and-carry-a-carrot strategy hasn’t worked,” a Baruch College political science professor, Douglas Muzzio, said. “He should see the amount of education funding Pataki offered as a complete slap in the face, and it makes Bloomberg’s strategy of making nice look totally ineffective. He didn’t get anything he wanted.”

A budget expert from the Manhattan Institute, E. J. McMahon, said the mayor couldn’t have been surprised by Mr. Pataki’s budget proposal given that the governor, too, faces a multibillion dollar budget shortfall.

“Whatever he says in public, Bloomberg couldn’t have been too surprised by this,” Mr. McMahon said. “The governor has been in court saying the special masters went beyond their mandate when they told the state how much they needed to pay New York. The Medicaid stuff was all telegraphed, so he knew what to expect.”

The governor’s staff briefed Mr. Bloomberg on the specifics in the budget on Monday night in a phone call that the mayor characterized as the governor telling him he was doing the best that he could given the states own budget shortfalls.

“The governor has to worry about 18 million people, and I’ve got to worry about 8 million people,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday. “The time to talk to him about individual specifics and getting him to change is over the next 30 days when he has a chance to change his executive budget.”

Mr. Bloomberg didn’t talk about one other education issue that could anger another city constituency: students. The governor said he would move to increase tuition at the State University of New York and City University. Mr. Pataki said SUNY tuition would go up by $500 a year and CUNY students would pay another $250 a year if the state legislature embraces Mr. Pataki’s budget proposal. This is the first increase in tuition since 2003.