ALBANY – Mayor Bloomberg criticized nearly every detail of Governor Pataki’s spending plan for New York City yesterday, saying proposals for health care, education, and transportation, among other items, “fall short” of meeting the city’s needs and would necessitate an amendment to its existing capital plan.

In testimony before the state legislative budget committees, Mr. Bloomberg urged lawmakers to repeal the sales tax on clothing purchases of less than $110. For the first time, he suggested that the Legislature could compensate for the repeal of the sales tax on clothing by extending a temporary surtax on personal income of wealthy New Yorkers, like himself.

The mayor cast that alternative, along with strong opposition to gambling as a source of stable revenue for the city, as progressive ways to close a projected city deficit of $3 billion.

Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized Mr. Bloomberg for responding mildly to the governor’s annual budget proposals, saying such an approach has resulted in greater neglect than solicitude for the city. The mayor has responded by saying his ability to negotiate with Mr. Pataki depends on good personal relations with his fellow Republican. Mr. Pataki may have dealt a blow to those relations yesterday, however, by being absent from the Capitol on a day the mayor and the governor have traditionally met – even if only as a courtesy.

If the governor had to choose a good day to be absent, however, this was it. In a departure from his past practice, Mr. Bloomberg devoted nearly his entire testimony to finding fault with Mr. Pataki’s plan.

“All of us have duties to the people of New York, and that is why I come before you to seek your urgent cooperation in repairing a number of serious flaws in the governor’s budget,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “There are elements on both the revenue and expenditure sides of this proposed budget that, if not corrected, will fall short of meeting the needs of our people and sustaining the future of our city.”

Mr. Bloomberg complained about proposed tuition increases for students at the City University of New York. He said a proposed gross-receipts tax on hospitals would impose “serious burdens” on the city’s private hospitals. He also said a proposed financial incentive for counties to keep growth in spending below the rate of inflation would be “impossible” for New York City to attain.

He criticized the governor’s efforts at Medicaid reform, saying a proposal to save $400 million on the program through caps on county expenditures would be offset in the city by the impact on public and private hospitals. And he indicated that neither the governor nor the Legislature was qualified to evaluate the city’s health-care needs, calling for the creation of an expert committee that would determine “how to best care for the Medicaid patients of our state.”

Mr. Bloomberg saved his sharpest criticism for the governor’s proposal on education spending, which the mayor characterized as both stingy and unreliable. He said the governor’s proposed $280 million in additional aid to New York City public schools fails on grounds of both “equity and practicality.” The city will amend its own capital plan this year to account for the gap between what’s needed and what can be expected from Albany, Mr. Bloomberg said.

Referring to a November 30 recommendation by a panel of special masters that the state phase in, over a four-year period, an additional $5.6 billion a year for the city’s school operations and a total of $9.2 billion for capital improvements, Mr. Bloomberg said: “The greatest disappointment in the governor’s budget is its failure to adequately address the court order and masters’ panel report in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit,” the mayor said. “The budget fails utterly to address the state’s need to contribute its fair share to our five-year capital program.”

During nearly two hours of testimony, Mr. Bloomberg alternated between the roles of impassioned advocate for the city’s most vulnerable residents and economics professor. He spoke of New York City as “the economic engine of the state” and repeatedly tied the state’s overall economic health to the health of the city and its ability to retain consumers and businesses.

To questions about a longstanding $12 million tax break enjoyed by the owners of Madison Square Garden, the mayor called for its repeal. He blamed the Internet and New Jersey for “robbing” New York City of revenue. And he said the sales tax on clothing should be lifted because of its impact on some of the city’s poorest residents.

In an extended and impassioned tutorial on wealth creation, however, Mr. Bloomberg – a wildly successful entrepreneur before he ran for mayor four years ago – said legislative financing for the proposed New York Sports & Convention Center on the far West Side is vital to the city’s and the state’s economic future. He said those who criticize the stadium proposal on the ground that affordable housing should be built instead are ignorant of the way the city finances its operations. It needs fixed revenues, he said, to pay for city employees.

“The West Side will get developed some day,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “Without the convention center and sports complex, however, housing on the West Side will not be built. You’ve got to get people to the West Side before developers go there. I’m tired of people saying this doesn’t take housing into consideration. Nobody is going to build housing unless you have the catalysts.”

Also testifying at the budget hearing, the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, disagreed with the governor’s reasoning on the stadium, saying public money for the project should be spent on services instead. Mr. Miller, a Democrat who plans to run against Bloomberg in this year’s mayoral race, was also critical of the mayor’s approach.

“It was more of the same,” he told The New York Sun afterward, referring to Mr. Bloomberg’s testimony. “Every year he says nice things about the governor and then asks these guys to bail him out.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who flew to Albany from La Guardia Airport yesterday in his personal jet, met with the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver. Mr. Bloomberg described both visits as a “courtesy.” Mr. Bruno told reporters later in the day that the mayor “spoke generally rather than specifically about the city’s needs.”

But Mr. Bloomberg did make specific mention of the West Side stadium, Mr. Bruno said.

That report was consistent with Mr. Bloomberg’s strong appeal for the stadium during his testimony. He said the city’s hopes for being named host of the 2012 Olympics would be dashed if the Public Authorities Control Board does not approve construction of the complex by April.

“The lack of the catalyst the Sports & Convention Center would provide would be devastating to the schedule we need for jobs now,” Mr. Bloomberg said.