Metro

Gov rejects taxes to fix Sandy deficit

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Gov. Cuomo won’t seek higher taxes or fees in next year’s state budget, despite massive revenue losses resulting from Hurricane Sandy, The Post has learned.

Cuomo plans to adhere to “his basic approach’’ of reining in the high cost of state government even if the federal government fails to cover all of New York’s losses from the storm, a decision that could grow the state’s already-projected $1 billion deficit for the fiscal year beginning April 1, an aide to the governor said.

Cuomo has suggested Sandy could double the projected deficit — noting that its disruption of the New York City-area economy has already added 50,000 people to unemployment rolls.

But no solid numbers have yet emerged as to the actual cost to the state of the lost income, sales and corporate tax revenues — not to mention the cost of state-sponsored remediation projects.

The governor is seeking $30 billion in federal aid to the state, New York City, other local governments and the private sector to cover the damage from Sandy, but many in government are skeptical that anything approaching the full amount will be received. Substantial aid is expected, though.

State legislators and other government watchers had hoped that the six month “Midyear Report’’ on state finances, expected to be released this week by Cuomo’s budget division, would provide a detailed picture of Sandy’s impact on the current budget.

But a source close to Cuomo said the update would show “no significant change in the budget situation’’ — but only because it was prepared without meaningful data on the storm’s fiscal effect.

“The Midyear Report doesn’t show anything significant because it’s all pre-Sandy numbers. We won’t know the real impact of Sandy until the end of December, when we get tax receipts and other data,’’ the source said.

Even before Sandy hit, state tax collections were trailing projections. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said last week that pre-Sandy tax collections were almost $171 million behind estimatesthat had been made in a three-month budget update in July.

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Control of the state Senate might be in the hands of Ulster County’s absentee voters, whose mailed-in ballots in the contest for the 46th Senate District are finally set to be counted starting today.

Last week’s absentee-ballot tally ended with GOP Assemblyman George Amedore leading Democrat Cecelia Tkaczyk, a little-known school-board member, by more than 900 votes. Absentee ballots have been counted from the sections of Albany, Schenectady, Green and Montgomery counties that are part of the district.

But Ulster County’s absentees are expected to produce a strong Democratic margin for Tkaczyk.

Republicans are expected to retain control of the 63-member Senate if Amedore emerges as the winner — with a bare one-vote majority. They’ll have 31 Republicans plus the support of Sen.-elect Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, a Democrat who says he’s backing continued GOP control.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jeff Klein of The Bronx, leader of the four-member “Independent Democratic Conference,’’ hasn’t been a profile in courage since Election Day. While he has strongly hinted the IDC will back continued GOP control of the Senate if Amedore is defeated, he has repeatedly refused to say flatly that it will do so.

“Jeff is afraid of retaliation from the Democrats, especially the unions, because he has statewide ambitions in the future. If he goes with the Republicans now, he’s afraid it’ll be all over for him with his own party down the road,’’ said a senior legislative Democrat who knows Klein well.