NEW YORK — Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to push for a change in the city’s term-limits law and run for another four years, a person who has been briefed on the matter told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Bloomberg, who has been wrestling with the decision for the past couple months and only decided over the weekend, will announce his plans Thursday, according to the person who is close to the mayor but spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement hasn’t been made.

The former chief executive officer who started his career on Wall Street will cite the nation’s precarious economic situation as the reason that New York needs a tested financial manager to stay on and guide the city, the person said.

The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned independent has long been a staunch supporter of the term-limits law but had hinted in recent months that he’d be willing to overturn the measure.

The individual close to the mayor said his plan is go through the City Council to extend the law to allow a third term because it is too late to get the issue on this year’s ballot.

Bloomberg, who founded the financial information company Bloomberg LP and whose worth is estimated at $20 billion, spent some $155 million on his first two campaigns, winning re-election by 20 percentage points in 2005. His former campaign teams are said to be standing by for a third round, according to the individual.

The development was first reported by The New York Times on its Web site Tuesday. Also Tuesday, the New York Post reported that Ronald Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir who pushed through the city’s term-limits law, was willing to make a one-time exception so Bloomberg could run again.

“I’ve been reading that Mayor Bloomberg might be interested in serving a third term,” Lauder told the Post. “Because of the unprecedented times, this is welcome news. To me, Mayor Bloomberg’s brilliance in the financial sector, particularly Wall Street, would be invaluable.”

Bloomberg’s change of heart comes amid the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The turmoil has dealt a serious blow to the city’s economy, which relies heavily on Wall Street profits for its tax base.

If Bloomberg did seek another term, it will be politically risky, however. Polls have shown that the public supports the idea of term limits, and Bloomberg himself vetoed a bill in 2002 that would have extended the terms for some officials. At the time, he said the proposed law was wrong because it amounted to changing the rules for personal political gain.

Chris Kelley, associate director of the government watchdog group Common Cause New York, accused Bloomberg of attempting to subvert the will of the voters.

“If there’s a discussion that needs to be had about term limits, the mayor has had years in office during which we could have had a public discussion,” he said. “We are now faced with a situation where we are looking at economic crisis and massive turnover at City Hall ... and to make an end-run around the voters’ choice is just incredibly disappointing.”

Any change in the law would send shock waves through the ranks of the city’s politicians, many of whom have been campaigning for different jobs, including Bloomberg’s. The law currently on the books will force Bloomberg from office at the end of next year, as well as the city comptroller, two-thirds of the city council and the city’s public advocate.

Democrats lining up to run include city Comptroller William Thompson, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Rep. Anthony Weiner and city Councilman Anthony Avella. On the GOP side are supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis and lawyer Bruce Blakeman.

John Collins, a spokesman for Weiner, said the news did not change the Queens congressman’s intention to run and “offer a vision of how to fight for the middle class and those struggling to make it.”

“This is highly speculative,” Collins added. “It’s illegal to run for a third term.”

Thompson called Bloomberg’s plan a “terrible idea.”

“This isn’t about a person,” he said. “Other leaders could move this city forward also.”

A spokeswoman for Quinn said she was out of the office and unavailable for comment.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani floated the idea of a three-month extension to his term to ease the transition of power. He also suggested overturning the city’s term-limits law, but ultimately decided against it. Even in the wake of the attacks, with Giuliani’s approval rating at 90 percent, one poll found that 55 percent of New York City voters opposed repealing term limits.

Lauder spent millions of dollars of his own money on the referendum that led to the enactment of the two-term limit in 1993. Lauder’s office and his spokesman didn’t immediately return calls from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

In September, City Councilman G. Oliver Koppell proposed a bill that would extend term limits. Koppell’s office was closed for the Jewish holiday and he did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. In August, a Times survey of council members found that a majority were willing to amend the term limits law.

Mark Green, the former city public advocate who lost to Bloomberg in 2001, called the move “an antidemocratic, unfeeling, power grab.”

Green, now president at Air America Media, said civic and labor officials had already been talking about mounting a pro-term-limits campaign should Bloomberg seek to overturn the law.

“He’s picked a fight. And now he’ll get one,” he said.

Dick Dadey, executive director of the good-government group Citizens Union, said that any change to the term-limits law should be made by referendum, not by legislators.

“There are compelling reasons to consider changing the law. But the will of the voters is sacrosanct on this issue,” he said. Citizens Union opposed term limits when they were created in the 1990s, but he said the voters have made their view clear and should be respected.

“It’s difficult to oppose a mayor who has been good for the city, but we should not be changing the law without the voters weighing in again.”

In 2006, Bloomberg scoffed at the notion that an individual could be truly irreplaceable.

“My experience in business has been, whenever we’ve had somebody who was irreplaceable, their successor invariably did a better job, and I think change is good,” he said. “Yes, you throw out an occasional good person, but you also throw out a lot of people who have just gotten stale and take it for granted, haven’t had any new ideas, so on balance I’ve always been a believer in term limits.”

Other mayors who have served three terms are Fiorello H. La Guardia, Robert F. Wagner and Edward I. Koch.