ALBANY – Start checking the mailbox soon.

The state Department of Taxation and Finance indicated Friday that more than 2 million checks as part of a tax-rebate program will start tentatively going out on Nov. 24.

“It’s a historic program to ensure that taxpayers in cap-compliant taxing jurisdictions actually have their taxes frozen for up to two years,” said Geoffrey Gloak, a department spokesman. “This is really an unprecedented relief program in coordination with the governor’s property-tax cap.”

The checks were expected to be delivered earlier this fall, but it wasn’t until Friday that the tax department indicated when the checks would start being shipped. Gloak said it will likely take months for all the payments to go out.

The process is complex: Every taxing entity’s data needs to be confirmed by the state to ensure that each one stayed under the property-tax cap.

The rebate checks are part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s three-year “property-tax freeze” program that started last year. The program is expected to provide $1 billion in tax relief.

Last year, homeowners received rebate checks for the growth in their school taxes. This year, it will be for the increase in school and municipal taxes – if they stayed under the state’s property-tax cap, which limits the growth in property taxes to less than 2 percent a year.

So this year, the checks will be the biggest under the initiative, an average of about $350 per household. Next year, the checks will be just for property taxes from local governments.

The checks this year are supposed to average $200 in upstate and as much as $800 in Westchester County, which has among the highest taxes in the nation, Cuomo’s budget office has estimated.

Cuomo has argued that the program, as well as his other tax plans, are aimed at limiting the burden on homeowners and make the state more business friendly.

“You have no long-term future if you are the tax capital of the nation. People are smart; businesses are smart. It’s not the old days where they’re rooted into the ground,”Cuomo said in a speech Jan. 14.

A property must be the homeowner’s primary residence outside New York City to be eligible, and taxable household income must be $500,000 or less.

The delay this year was largely because the program is tied to efficiency plans that were required of schools and local governments.

For taxpayers to be eligible for the rebates, their local governments had to get plans to cut their tax levy by 1 percent approved this year. Schools needed the plans – aimed at cutting property taxes permanently – to be approved by next year.

The state Budget Division was required to sign off on the plans by July 31. But the approval of 2,000 efficiency plans wasn’t finished until mid-October — delaying the tax department from finalizing which communities were eligible for the checks.

The state Budget Division estimated that the plans approved would save taxpayers $2.4 billion over three years. The plans require local governments and schools to share more services, and thus cut costs.

The first year of the tax-freeze program also had delays.

While last year’s checks started going out in October, some residents didn’t get them until late February.

Gerry Geist, executive director of the state Association of Towns, said it’s important for the state to provide a timeline of when the checks will arrive, saying it helps the public and local officials stay informed.

“Sometimes when you give deadlines, it forces you to make those deadlines,” Geist said.

Critics said the rebate programs mask the underlying reasons for New York’s high property taxes, such as unfunded state mandates.

The “freeze” program is one of several tax rebates in New York.

The state spends $3 billion a year on the STAR rebate, which provides a break on school taxes and is the largest program of its kind in the country.

Last year, the state created a Family Tax Relief Credit that provides a $350 check to New Yorkers with children under 17. There were 1 million checks mailed out, and those went out fairly smooth. This year, the money will be a tax credit when people file their income taxes.

Last June, the state Legislature and Cuomo agreed to another rebate check — this one tied to household income. Those will go out next fall, likely in advance of next year’s election when all 213 seats in the state Legislature are on the ballot.

All the checks dilute the intent of trying to lower people’s tax bills, said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany.

“People aren’t really going to connect it closely with their local governments. It’s just a check,” he said. “It’s like a rebate you get from an appliance store six months after you buy the TV. You almost forget that they sold you the TV.”

© 2015 Gannett News Service