Corzine holds off on signing property tax-credit bill

It's the centerpiece of the Legislature's property tax relief effort, and it's sitting on Gov. Jon Corzine's desk awaiting his signature.

But the governor is biding his time. He says he'll wait, likely until next month but perhaps even later, to sign the bill that would give most New Jersey homeowners a credit of up to 20 percent on their property tax bills.

"We have to get it signed, but I haven't decided what day," Corzine said following a town hall meeting Tuesday night in Piscataway. And he was vague about his reasons for holding off.

"There are a lot of issues we are working on," Corzine said. "We have a desire to get a series of things done, some of them not legislatively driven."

The regular deadline to sign the bill, 45 days after passage by the Legislature, is Saturday. But Corzine is exploiting an obscure provision in the law that leaves an unsigned bill in limbo when the Legislature isn't meeting. The Senate and Assembly are on a break until May while committees conduct hearings on Corzine's budget proposal.

Corzine indicated he might wait until he appoints a new state comptroller so that he can put a final, ceremonial shine on the six-month special legislative session by signing the tax credit bill.

"We'd like to be able to deliver these on a composite basis," Corzine said. "There are a whole series of things that accompany how we put the package in place."