ALBANY – Governor Pataki is expected to act soon on a bill that quietly passed both houses of the Legislature in the final hours of the session, authorizing tax breaks for New York City building owners who increase wages for unionized security guards they employ.

Opponents of the little-known bill called it a straight political barter that puts security standards – and the tax code – at the service of political support from union members. Supporters said it will ultimately lead to increased wages for all guards. Mr. Pataki has 10 days to act on the measure once it reaches his desk, which is likely to happen within days.

The bill, which passed the Assembly and Senate over the final two days of the 2005 legislative session last month, has angered an outspoken security consultant who was appointed by Mr. Pataki several years ago to review security policy in the state. The consultant, Richard “Bo” Dietl, said the bill bears all the marks of a backroom deal between Republicans and the powerful Service Employees International Union, which represents unionized guards.

“You’re giving $60 million in tax relief for training that other security guards are not going to get,” Mr. Dietl, a former New York City police officer who is chairman and chief executive officer of Beau Dietl & Associates, said. “This was pushed down people’s throats, and people don’t know what’s going on. If we want to enhance the training, why can’t we enhance the training for all of them? If this is such a good bill, why did they do it so fast and at the end of the day?”

Mr. Dietl said repeated efforts to contact Mr. Pataki and the bill’s Republican sponsor in the Senate, Nicholas Spano of Westchester, have failed. He said he will speak out against the bill if the governor signs it because he thinks it would undermine rather than enhance safety by creating a special class of guards, rather than uniform standards for the profession. Mr. Dietl said he would take his case to the popular “Imus in the Morning” radio and television program, on which he is a regular guest.

“Normally they pass things by us if there’s going to be anything dealing with security,” Mr. Dietl said. “But mysteriously this bill came up very, very quickly. This was an 11th-and-three-quarters-hour thing that was supposed to be in committee, and I think it lasted there about 30 seconds. I totally concur that after 9/11 we should train guards better to report incidents of possible terrorism. But we should enhance the security guard industry for every security guard. Why should we have a cherry-picker of special interests here?”

Under the bill, owners of commercial and residential buildings in New York City would receive a $3,000 credit for every unionized employee who completes 40 hours’ training in a new “terrorism awareness” program overseen by the state. The guards would also receive incremental wage increases over three years. A memo to the bill, signed by Mr. Spano, said wage increases are aimed at maintaining stability in the trade.

“The bill seeks to address two main concerns,” Mr. Spano wrote. “Due to the insufficient and inadequate training, private security officers are not fully prepared to meet the challenges of a post-9/11 world. Secondly, industry turnover of up to 300% leaves many properties guarded by officers who are not familiar with the building, its tenants, visitors, the surrounding neighborhood, and local law enforcement.”

Mr. Dietl, who was appointed chairman of the state Security Guard Advisory Council by Mr. Pataki in 1995, recently launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to thwart the measure. On Friday he sent a letter to the governor saying the purpose of the bill is to increase the number of unionized security guards. Mr. Dietl accused SEIU/Local 32BJ of pressing lawmakers to pass the bill in exchange for political support and suggested the measure conflicts with federal labor laws that seek to prevent conflicts of interest in the security trade.

A spokesman for Mr. Pataki, Scott Reif, said the governor would not comment on the legislation until he has had a chance to review it.

“We’ll review it when we receive it,” Mr. Reif said. “We’ll do that before commenting any further on it.”

Spokesmen for SEIU and Mr. Spano did not return calls seeking comment.

A spokesman for the bill’s Assembly sponsor, Adriano Espaillat, a Manhattan Democrat who is running for Manhattan borough president, defended the measure.

“This bill actually gets the ball rolling so all security guards can make the decent wages they deserve,” the spokesman, Joel Barkin, said. “We actually think the legislation will narrow the gap in pay disparity.”

Mr. Barkin downplayed the bill’s late passage, saying lawmakers commonly scramble to wrap things up at the end of session.

“Unfortunately, the legislative process works out so a lot of things get worked out at the very end,” Mr. Barkin said. “Sometimes people work best when under a deadline, and that’s why it passed at the end of session.”

The bill, which was introduced in the Assembly in May, was put up for a vote on the last scheduled day of the legislative session. It passed the Senate the next morning, just before lawmakers returned home. It earmarks $60 million in tax credits to owners of buildings who pay unionized workers a minimum $9.50 hourly wage beginning this year. The hourly wage increases to $10.85 by 2007. Only building owners who pay the new wage would qualify for the credit.

If approved, the pay raise would be just the most recent instance lawmakers in Albany have quietly brokered a deal with the politically powerful service workers union. The most notable example was a deal Mr. Pataki and the legislative leaders struck with the president of SEIU/1199, Dennis Rivera, in 2002. Mr. Rivera endorsed Mr. Pataki after the governor quietly agreed to increase salaries for hospital and nursing-home workers by $1.8 billion over three years.

Mr. Spano’s seat in the Republican led Senate is viewed as the party’s most vulnerable. He was re-elected by just 18 votes last fall, and the Republicans maintain a tenuous 35-27 hold in the Senate.

A budget analyst with the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy, E.J. McMahon, said the bill’s passage would signal the onset of even greater future power by unions over lawmakers in Albany because it would make it seem normal to manipulate the tax code in the service of unions. Mr. McMahon first called attention to the bill in a recent article about another tax credit, for comedians, proposed by Mr. Espaillat.

“This is a horrid piece of legislation,” Mr. McMahon said. “This is using a tax credit to fully subsidize a pay increase for members of a politically wired union by using building owners as the middlemen. The unions … are now using the tax code and ultimately the taxpayers to finance their collective bargaining. I would predict you have not seen the end of this. This is just the beginning of this stuff.”