Mayor Bloomberg’s budget woes grew yesterday after City Council members threatened to derail a property-tax hike if Gov. Pataki and state lawmakers refuse to approve a new commuter tax.
“Why should all the residents be penalized before the foreigners are?” demanded Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn).
Felder said it was unlikely he’d back a property-tax hike – which could take an extra $1 billion or more from homeowners – without restoration of the commuter surcharge.
“I’m opposed to using the property tax to solve this fiscal crisis,” said Councilman Michael McMahon (D-S.I).
“The mayor has known about this situation since he took office. It’s unfair to the middle class.”
The council members stiffened their opposition after Bloomberg aides recently floated the idea of boosting property taxes by 10 to 25 percent to help close an estimated $5 billion budget gap.
Pataki on Monday flatly ruled out a commuter tax, while Bloomberg said everything must be on the table.
Yesterday, the governor asked city officials to “think innovatively” to solve their financial mess.
A property-tax increase doesn’t need Albany’s approval, but a commuter tax does.
Pataki also said Port Authority resources and federal aid could help the city close the yawning gap.
PA officials told The Post yesterday that negotiations on the Kennedy and La Guardia airport leases were going well with the Bloomberg administration and could yield “hundreds of millions of dollars” for the city’s coffers.
Council Speaker Gifford Miller didn’t address the property-tax issue yesterday, but he lashed out at Pataki’s opposition to the commuter tax.
Miller said the governor’s assessment that the tax would hurt the city’s economic recovery is “just plain wrong, and I wonder if even he believes it.”
“We also need real leadership for these hard times,” the speaker said, invoking the name of former Gov. Hugh Carey, who led the state during the city’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s.
Carey, a Democrat, recently endorsed Pataki.
Sources said Miller’s aides plan to ask Bloomberg to go back to the governor to push him to back a commuter tax.
Councilwoman Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) conceded that in the end, some form of a property-tax hike may be inevitable.
“It’s a disgrace that the governor does not want to help New York City,” she said.
“New York City is just going to have to help itself, and that may mean taking up the least equitable tax.”
With additional reporting by Kenneth Lovett