Republican Curtis Sliwa plans to reimburse New Yorkers up to $500 yearly on tolls spent driving into Manhattan’s congestion zone if he’s elected NYC’s next mayor.
The GOP nominee on Monday will roll out his “Money In Your Pocket” blueprint that also includes no city taxes on tips, and new property tax rebates of up to $500 for primary residences and owner-occupied co-ops and condos.
Sliwa told The Post he wants to trim $8 billion to $10 billion off the city budget — especially “bureaucratic fat” at the Department of Education — and put the savings toward making New York City more affordable.
“This is a way that we can actually put money back into people’s pockets, so that they have expendable income, so that they are not forced to leave,” he said.
The plan is the complete opposite of platforms pushed by socialist Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat and frontrunner to win the mayoral race, added Sliwa.
“Zohran Mamdani’s plan is tax, tax and tax, and we know that’s just going to chase people away,” Sliwa said.
Sliwa’s “city mobility rebate” would provide one person per household 10% back on yearly “congestion” tolls to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, capped at $500.
The wildly unpopular $9 tolling scheme went into effect in April and has been a backbreaker for many New Yorkers who commute by car.
Sliwa said he’d likely limit the rebate to New Yorkers earning $150,000 yearly or less.
“I’m not concerned about millionaires and billionaires and people making more than enough money,” the Guardian Angels founder and radio talk show host said. “This is designed for working-class people.”
His “No City Tax on Tips” plan would mirror a provision in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed into law in July that eliminates federal income taxes on tips for a wide variety for jobs ranging from waitresses to golf caddies.
Sliwa said his proposal to provide $500 rebates to people who can prove they have a home, co-op and condo in NYC that is their primary residence would be paid for through the city budget. Like his “No City Tax on Tips” plan, it would also need state approval.
The rebates would be comparable to the state’s School Tax Relief (STAR) program, which provides tax savings to seniors living on fixed incomes.
Sliwa said he’d he’d fund the “Money In Your Pocket” initiative during his first year as mayor by auditing each city agency and cutting government waste and would then lobby state legislators to help permanently fund it in future yearly budgets.
He believes the DOE — which has a $41 billion budget and is projected to spend a record-breaking $42,000 per pupil this academic year — has the most fat to cut, especially “high-priced deputy chancellors and other execs” who do repetitive work.
Sliwa is polling a distant third in the mayor’s race behind Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but he is slightly ahead of incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who like Cuomo is a Dem running as an independent.
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