ATLANTA --- Local governments should continue to offer a state-funded property-tax credit for homeowners even as Gov. Sonny Perdue has proposed axing the money to pay for it, lawmakers and at least one government group say.

The pressure comes in the wake of Mr. Perdue's plan, announced late last week, to slice $1.6 billion from the state budget as a slide in tax revenues threatens to plunge the state into a financial crisis. Mr. Perdue announced he would withhold 6 percent of most state agencies' budgets along with the funding for the property tax credits.

Eliminating the Homeowners Tax Relief Grant would net the state about $428 million. The program saves the average homeowner around $150 to $200, based on some estimates.

Republican legislative leaders, though, say that doing away with the credit would amount to a tax increase.

"House leadership is currently exploring other options besides the permanent suspension of the HTRG to offer to the Governor and Senate as an alternative solution," House Speaker Glenn Richardson, R-Hiram, said in a memo to House members dated Monday.

Lawmakers have been meeting this week to try to devise a plan to avoid eliminating the credit.

"What we've come to a consensus on is that none of us think that the right thing to do in a down economy is raise taxes," said House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin, R-Evans.

But Mr. Perdue's office maintains that -- even if the Legislature approves the governor's plan to ax the relief grants, which reimburse cities and counties for providing the credit -- local governments could cut their own budgets.

Mr. Perdue is on a trip to China, meeting with an international group of state and provincial governments to discuss energy and health care.

The Association County Commissioners of Georgia has issued a memo to counties telling them to continue to offer the credit.

"If you exclude the credit and the state honors the reimbursement, your homeowners will have lost the tax savings," the memo says. "Furthermore, county commissioners will have a difficult time explaining to the homeowner why their credit was removed from their tax bill when the legislature had not removed the funding for this program."