Gov. Mark Sanford made a last-ditch appeal Friday to the state General Assembly, asking members to use some of the more than $1 billion in revenue growth to grant property tax relief without a huge percentage increase in the state's sales tax.

With the 2006-07 budget still under negotiation and the June 1 adjournment nearing, Sanford sent letters to the 170 members, asking them to use $292 million of the approximately $500 million in new recurring revenue for property tax cuts so "we can correspondingly decrease the need to increase the sales tax."

Senate and House conferees are grappling with different budget bills.

House Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island, said he hadn't read Sanford's letter but welcomed "anything that spotlights and highlights the property tax and what we're doing and shows our good friends in the Senate that we have no intention of backing down from our commitment."

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The Senate voted May 11 to allow counties to decide by local referenda on swapping a sales tax increase for cutting school or county taxes.

Earlier, the House passed a plan that would reduce most taxes on owner-occupied homes, eliminate the sales tax on groceries and increase the sales tax on other items to 7 percent from 5 percent.

Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, could not be reached for comment.

Merrill said he is "extremely pleased that the governor now sees the merits of joining the property tax fray."

"We've been encouraging him to do so for quite a while," Merrill said. "He was fixated on other stuff, but he realizes how important it is to South Carolinians."

Sanford had unsuccessfully sought a $400 income tax rebate for families and, more recently, a temporary gas tax suspension.

The governor told reporters and editors of The Greenville News that his proposal "would be less harmful to the business community," some of whose members are concerned that it would damage their competitiveness in relation to other states and drive many South Carolina consumers to untaxed Internet sales.

He hinted that it could be an alternative to his proposed gas tax suspension, approved by the House, but still facing a hostile Senate.

"We're saying that, OK, if you don't like the idea of the gas tax, and clearly the Senate doesn't, how about looking at this," he said.

Sanford's latest initiative comes against a backdrop of today's Statehouse rally aimed at pressuring the Republican legislative majority to include tax relief in the pending budget.

The state Republican Party has issued a call to its members to turn out for the 10 a.m. rally to stand with Sanford and those elected Republican officials "who think South Carolinians deserve tax relief this year."

Sanford, in the interview and in the letter, said the abundance of new money represents a "unique opportunity" to provide tax relief and slow a rate of government growth that he said would top 16 percent in the current budget if all the new revenue is spent.

He said the new Board of Economic Advisers projection of an additional $180 million in new revenue "represent the chance to use recurring dollars to cut property taxes -- lowering the level of required sales tax increase in the process -- and at the same time slow the amount of projected spending from the general fund."