Tax Rebate Checks ‘May’ be in Mail, Sez Mayor Bloomberg

NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Bloomberg said for the first time Friday that “maybe we will” send out that $400 property tax rebate he has been holding hostage for more than a month.

Although not specific, the mayor seemed to link mailing the rebate – worth $256 million to more than 600,000 homeowners – to striking a deal with the City Council on a disputed budget modification plan.

Discussing the issue on his weekly WOR radio show, the mayor urged, “Do it right now, so we’d get the second six months of this fiscal year …. That’s [worth] roughly $600 million in revenue.”
In the same breath, he added, “And I’ve said, you know, nobody wants to send out the property tax rebate more than me – and maybe we will.”

The drop-dead deadline for resolving the standoff on a plan to bridge a $4 billion budget gap caused by the Wall Street implosion is Thursday.

That’s the day a judge is expected to rule on a suit by several Council members to force payment of the rebates.

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Philip Minardo has urged both sides to resolve their differences by then – or “the court will decide.”

Thursday is also the date of the Council’s last scheduled session of the year, timed to give the legislators a long holiday break.

The mayor’s plan includes scrapping the rebate and rescinding the 7% property tax rate relief granted two years ago when times were flush.

It was scheduled to end next July 1, but the mayor wants to move it up to Jan. 1.

Neither side would say a deal is close, but a Council aide familiar with the talks confided, “The process has started for an agreement next week … the wheels are moving.”