In the final days before the Democratic primary, the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, could be in jeopardy of losing his last batch of public matching funds.

The city’s Campaign Finance Board rejected yesterday the Miller campaign’s claim that $600,000 it spent to circulate petitions to establish a ballot line called Smaller Class Sizes did not count against the $5.7 million spending cap that candidates in the public matching fund program must abide by in the period leading up to the primary.

At a hearing, the chairman of the board, Frederick Schwarz Jr., said the decision was based on the “gross magnitude” of the costs ascribed to gathering petitions to create the party, which Mr. Miller will use as a second line in the general election if he wins the Democratic Party nomination, along with the timing of the petition drive and the fact that the Smaller Class Size petition workers distributed literature displaying the date of the Democratic primary.

“We’re not accepting their request that it’s 100% exempt,” Mr. Schwarz, the city’s former corporation counsel, and a distant cousin of Mr. Miller’s, said.

The board also issued a statement saying that based on its most recent disclosures, the Miller campaign “would appear to be over the expenditure limit.” It gave the campaign until 10 a.m. tomorrow to respond.

“Unless, in that submission, the Miller campaign presents an acceptable reallocation of the expenditures claimed as exempt, it appears that the Miller campaign would remain over and, therefore, would not be eligible for additional public funds payments,” a statement from the board said.

Board member Dale Christensen Jr. dissented, saying the board should not be changing the rules in the middle of an election cycle. A spokesman for Mr. Miller, Stephen Sigmund, denied that the campaign had gone over the spending limit and said it would have plenty of money even if the board ruled against it. He also said the campaign had already reduced spending this week on television commercials to $700,000 from $1 million, and that it was not expecting much in additional matching funds.

Although costs related to collecting petitions and ensuring a campaign complies with the law do not generally count against the spending limit, Mr. Miller classified an extraordinarily high percentage of his spending as exempt. The exemptions, which were first reported in The New York Sun, prompted questions about whether Mr. Miller was stretching regulations so he could spend more money on the primary.

The board, acting on a request by the Miller campaign to clarify its rules, addressed part of the situation yesterday. It said the campaign should revise the amount of its proposed exemption related to the Small Class Sizes party. The board delayed a decision on whether Mr. Miller exempted too much money to get his name on the Democratic ballot. Mr. Schwarz directed the Miller campaign to respond to complaints filed yesterday by two of Mr. Miller’s opponents in the Democratic primary, Rep. Anthony Weiner and the president of Manhattan, C. Virginia Fields, before it would take the issue up. Both complaints allege the Miller campaign abused the rules.

– Jill Gardiner

***

Although Democratic mayoral frontrunner Fernando Ferrer is devoting his days to unseating Mayor Bloomberg, the former Bronx borough president found time last night to attack Mr. Bloomberg’s predecessor, whom Mr. Ferrer accused of engaging in nasty behavior daily during his mayoralty.

During a live interview on Radio Soleil, a Haitian Internet-only station, Mr. Ferrer was asked whether the perception that Mr. Bloomberg was “harmless” compared to Mayor Giuliani would pose a challenge to the Democrat’s campaign. Mr. Ferrer responded: “I give Mike Bloomberg credit for not snarling at New Yorkers every morning like Mayor Giuliani did every morning when he woke up.” But he added: “I don’t think people’s expectations of a mayor should be so low after eight years of Giuliani that we look at a mayor who smiles at us, that has the same kind of policies as Giuliani, and say that’s acceptable behavior in our city.”

During the interview, Mr. Ferrer said the Democratic nominee would get help from “the likes of former President Clinton, Senator Clinton, Senator Schumer, all the leading lights of the Democratic Party not only in this city, but in this country.”

Mr. Ferrer declared: “The campaign to get the White House back in 2008, the campaign to get Albany back in 2006, begins in New York City in 2005.”

– Meghan Clyne

***

Buoyed by poll numbers suggesting his campaign is finally catching on with Democratic voters, Rep. Anthony Weiner began touring the city yesterday in a big yellow school bus. Mr. Weiner, long considered a relatively unknown underdog candidate, started his excursion at Uncle Louie G’s, his favorite childhood ice cream parlor in Park Slope, and hit other locally owned stores – a pizza joint, a hair salon, a gym, an orthopedic shoe store, and a fish store – where he engaged merchants in conversations about rising taxes, parking problems, and increasing ticketing.

With a group of sign-waving supporters and a gaggle of reporters in tow, Mr. Weiner touted his plans for tax cuts for those making under $150,000 a year and billed himself as the candidate for the middle-class mom-and-pop business owners he was visiting. In between stores he stopped pedestrians to introduce himself and pass out his signature blue-and-orange stickers to children, asking each if they like the New York Mets, who share his campaign colors.

Mr. Weiner joked about stopping off at his Forest Hills apartment to feed his two cats but headed up to Riverdale instead to visit some Bronx businesses.

– Jill Gardiner