Kezia Dugdale has accused the SNP of a “dereliction of duty” over their “total silence about the scale of cuts to come”.
The Scottish Labour leader charged First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with failing to be honest with the electorate about the state of the country’s finances.
In a speech to supporters in Glasgow, Ms Dugdale said the Scottish Government faced having to make “simply unacceptable” cuts to public services in future years, particularly education.
Scottish Labour faces an uphill struggle to dent massive support for the SNP ahead of parliamentary elections on May 5, when Ms Sturgeon’s party is widely-expected to be returned to government.
Debate over the nation’s finances has grown particularly heated in recent weeks after the SNP passed their budget which slashes millions from council budgets.
Ms Dugdale had advocated raising income tax by 1p to help offset these cuts, but the SNP argued such a move would hit the lowest paid workers hardest.
Ms Dugdale said: “The official figures show that local education budgets have been cut in every year since the SNP was re-elected.
“By £272million in 2011/12, then by £100million, then £147million and £20million. A total real terms cut to local education of around half a billion pounds since Nicola Sturgeon was re-elected.
“That is why we have been so strong, not just in arguing for additional resources, but in arguing for the ways in which these resources can be generated.
“Without significant new revenues, which the SNP have yet to identify, a re-elected SNP would be faced with a stark choice: cut education again and again or cut those other departments by huge amounts.
“If they do plan to protect education, despite voting against it in parliament this month, then you would expect to see honest plans set out by ministers in other departments for completely reassessing what they are able to deliver as their budgets are cut by hundreds of millions.
“But you don’t. There is total silence about the scale of cuts to come.
“It isn’t just that avoiding this truth before an election is dishonest, it is a dereliction of duty by the government.”
But the SNP’s Mark Macdonald MSP hit back, branding Labour’s plans “half-baked”.
He added: “(This) speech contradicts her party’s shadow chancellor who said last week that they would ‘move beyond tax-and-spend’ – Kezia Dugdale now says this is her primary focus.
“Labour have not set out a single policy to grow the economy instead they want to tax some of the lowest earners in our society and only last week voted against a Living Wage for the thousands of low paid people working in the care sector and increased investment in education.”