When I travel throughout the 128th Assembly District, the issue residents most often talk to me about is getting relief from their property taxes.

Unfortunately, no one has been able to come up with a viable alternative to replace property taxes with another method to fund education, so I have focused on ways to help relieve the property tax burden on homeowners.

I was one of the early supporters of the STAR program when it was proposed nearly a decade ago.

STAR has helped provide relief to homeowners but property taxes continue to rise.

I am pleased that Gov. Eliot Spitzer's 2007-08 state budget proposal includes some property tax relief, but his plan eliminates granting real relief directly to homeowners, which the Assembly Republican conference has provided and continues to support.

My Assembly Republican colleagues and I support a plan that would provide $2.6 billion to homeowners.

The governor claims that he is providing an increase of $1.5 billion in property tax relief for this year, however, his budget eliminates the STAR rebate check program as well as the Personal Income Tax Credit.

In other words, the governor is actually only providing taxpayers an additional $825 million.

I support the state Senate “Rebate Plan” which would triple the amount of last year's rebate checks in 2007-08 and quadruple them in 2008-09, providing 6 billion dollars in property tax relief over two years.

The rebate check provides direct relief to the homeowner and would be issued around the time the present year's school property taxes are due, the time they are most needed by taxpayers.

The rebate program will help reduce the property tax burden for New Yorkers.

My Republican colleagues in the Assembly and Senate support the rebate program.

I hope our new governor will do the same.