ALBANY – Just in time for election season, the state has started mailing $350 rebate checks to more than 1 million eligible New York families.

The first round of checks will be followed by a second round in October, giving homeowners roughly a 2 percent rebate on their school property taxes from last year.

State politicians who approved the rebate programs say the cash is a necessary response to New York’s high level of taxes.

Critics say the timing of the checks amounts to a publicly funded re-election campaign for incumbents for this fall.

The programs are a courtesy of, well, you, the taxpayers.

A Cuomo spokesman said “smart fiscal discipline” helped pave the way for “much-needed tax relief.”

“As the governor has repeatedly said, New York has no future as the high tax capital of the world,” Richard Azzopardi said.

But that is not how fiscal watchdogs see it. “They’re just pure gimmicks. They have no lasting, positive economic impact,” said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank.

“If you actually had a recurring, permanent tax cut, you would be creating to some degree a stronger incentive to live, work, invest and employ in New York. A pair of temporary tax credit checks is just a vote-buying ploy,” he added.

The first program, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the Legislature approved in 2013, is called the family tax relief credit. Western New Yorkers will start seeing checks from that program starting today, tax officials said Wednesday.

There are eligibility requirements, based on a taxpayer’s 2012 state income tax returns filed during 2013.

You must have been a state resident for the full year, had a state adjusted gross income of between $40,000 and $300,000 and paid your state income taxes that year.

Finally, in the category that will eliminate millions of New Yorkers from the program, the checks only will go to families that in 2012 claimed as a dependent at least one child under the age of 17. The fine print reads that if a 16-year-old turned 17 as late as December 31, 2012, the family is not eligible for the rebate.

But 1.02 million New Yorkers will get a $350 check, whether they made $40,000 or $300,000 that year. In Erie County, 50,376 families are in line for the $350 check, while 11,812 in Niagara County will receive the rebate, tax officials say.

Just 10 percent of the state’s 10 million taxpayers will see a rebate check under the family tax rebate program, which will cost the state budget $357 million this year, not including the mailing costs.

The program was designed so that eligible taxpayers do not have to do anything to claim the money. To accomplish that, tax officials said they needed the most recent complete year – 2012 – in order to determine who met the criteria.

Critics say the timing is no accident, with checks coming just a month before the November elections and while incumbents – from the governor to members of the Assembly and Senate – are on the campaign trail.

The rebate checks mailed this week include no message from Cuomo and are signed by Tax Commissioner Thomas Mattox, according to Geoff Gloak, a tax department spokesman.

A Cuomo spokesman said no government money will be spent promoting Cuomo’s role with the rebate programs.

For cynics who insist the family tax rebate was timed to help incumbents, they can point to this: The rebate checks go in the mail this fall before the program switches to a traditional tax credit program that requires residents to proactively take the credit on their tax returns.

Officials with Senate Republicans, who helped Cuomo in pushing the rebate programs, did not respond to questions about whether the GOP re-election committee or individual lawmakers will reach out to voters to tout the rebate checks.

Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer, an Erie County Republican, said he supported the two tax cut programs, but does not endorse the format being used.

“I’m not doing any mailings on the program. My preference would have been more of an across-the-board, broad-based tax cut,” Ranzenhofer said.

A spokesman for Sen. Patrick Gallivan, another Erie County Republican, said information about the rebate programs was included in mailings sent to voters in April and May, but that there are no plans to send additional mailings now.

The second program is for relief on school taxes. Those checks will be sent sometime in October.

This program was approved earlier in the year as part of the state budget and calls for the state to provide a rebate to taxpayers if they live in a community whose school district budget this year did not exceed the state’s property tax cap ceiling. Residents in fewer than 20 locations statewide won’t be eligible under that condition.

Under the program, the state will pay the difference between the 2013 and 2014 school tax bills to eligible residents. The idea was to put additional pressure on schools to live within the confines of the tax cap.

So if your school tax bill rose $75 with the district staying under the tax hike ceiling, the state rebate check coming in October will be $75.

The program will be worth far more to an average homeowner in Westchester County and on Long Island, home to the state’s highest property taxes, than in Western New York, where home values are lower than in downstate communities.

The program affects school districts and the Big Four communities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers, which do not have separate school district voting by residents.

New York City residents are not eligible for the rebates; there is a separate renters’ tax break program for taxpayers there.

This year’s budget deal also seeks not to anger residents of cap-busting communities. The new program even allows those homeowners to get a rebate check – though it can’t exceed an amount equal to 1.46 percent of their school property tax bill from last year.

By next year, the property tax credit program will expand to cover not just school taxes, but all local property taxes, such as town, village, library, fire and special districts.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has estimated the property tax rebate program will cost the state $375 million this year, rising to $783 million in 2015.

© 2014 The Buffalo News