Mayor Bloomberg will reprise his accomplishments over the last three years and offer a handful of new initiatives today in a State of the City address that is widely seen as the public kickoff of his re-election campaign.

Aides said the mayor will propose a plan to help struggling high school students ensure they get GEDs or vocational training, rather than allow them simply to drop out of school; unveil a new crime-fighting initiative, and launch a commission to make certain that construction jobs in the city go to a broad array of New Yorkers.

Also likely to be in the mix is a renewed pledge to give homeowners a $400 tax rebate again this year and a promise that Mr. Bloomberg will work to guarantee that “emergency” sales taxes in the city sunset on schedule.

“The mayor will emphasize what he is doing to make New York the city of opportunity for all,” an aide familiar with the speech, who declined to be further identified, said.

If there is a speech that Mr. Bloomberg has traditionally delivered well, it is the State of the City address. Last year he managed to lose the deadpan monotone reporters have come to expect from him and displayed rhetorical flourishes, political themes, and even flashes of emotion. In his address this afternoon at Hostos College in the Bronx, according to analysts, given that he will ask voters to re-elect him in November, there is even more at stake.

“This speech will set the tone for the election,” one political strategist, George Arzt, said. “He has to get out not only a list of accomplishments but also a vision for the next four years. Frankly, I don’t think he can mess this up. The governor’s State of the State address was so poor in getting out his vision for the future, the bar is so low, that for Bloomberg this is a layup.”

Governor Pataki gave his address on the state last week, and critics and political analysts alike said it was so thin on specifics for the future that they doubt Mr. Pataki will seek a fourth term. Mr. Bloomberg’s focus will be on convincing voters that if they like the direction the city is headed, they should give him another four years.

“This is the public opening of his 2005 campaign,” a Baruch College political science professor, Douglas Muzzio, said. “He is going to provide grand themes. We’ll hear his sound bite: the two-to-four-word phrase that will encapsulate the Bloomberg mayoralty.”

The theme of the self-made billionaire’s address, according to those who have seen the speech, is that New York is “the city of opportunity” – a formulation that is not very different from President Bush’s theme of the Ownership Society. Mr. Bloomberg’s address is to be divided into five main sections – all of which, not surprisingly, will highlight successes during his administration.

Mr. Bloomberg has told voters to judge him on the progress of his school reform program. He wrestled control of the schools away from the Board of Education, made schools safer, sought to end “social promotion” in the third and fifth grades, and vowed to clean up the way schools have been constructed in the city. He is likely to focus in his speech on the one segment of the school population that has not been targeted in his program: struggling high-schoolers.

Mr. Bloomberg is expected to promise to help students who are having trouble getting the credits they need to finish high school. Instead of ignoring them if they drop out, he will propose a renewed effort to get them equivalency diplomas or some sort of vocational training.

He will talk about increasing opportunity for New Yorkers by giving them a safer city to live in, people familiar with the speech said. Mr. Bloomberg will remind listeners that Operation Impact, a police program that concentrates cops in problem crime areas in the city, has helped bring down crime rates to the lowest levels in a generation.

Aides declined to provide details on the new crime-fighting initiative Mr. Bloomberg will introduce, apart from talking about how it is meant to make the nation’s safest big city that much safer.

The mayor, aides said, will also vow to help the city’s most vulnerable, the poor and the homeless who need affordable places to live, hospitals that work, and facilities that will help them get back on their feet. He’ll remind voters that the streets are the cleanest they have ever been, and that the city is reclaiming its waterfront, maintaining the character of its neighborhoods, and developing projects across the five boroughs.

Mr. Bloomberg will also make a case for his favored West Side development plan, which includes, among other things, a new stadium for the New York Jets football team, millions of square feet in office space, and new parks for a part of Manhattan he says has been blighted for too long. The construction boom that the project will spark, if it gets off the ground, will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for a wide range of New Yorkers, the mayor is expected to say again today.

Mr. Bloomberg’s speech is aimed in part at blunting the slings and arrows his opponents will cast his way between now and the election. In addition, while seeking to appeal to voters across the city, Mr. Bloomberg is also likely to woo the communities where he has been weakest, in Brooklyn and Queens – the two most populous boroughs.

Analysts agree that all five Democrats jockeying for the top job at City Hall are hoping Mr. Bloomberg will stumble in his speech, given that his record on crime and the economy is difficult to use against him. As if to reassure them that the campaign ahead is long and bumbling – or at least humbling – Mr. Bloomberg managed a gaffe yesterday while visiting a new jungle monkey exhibit at the Bronx zoo.

The episode began innocently when a reporter asked Mr. Bloomberg to name his favorite animal. The mayor tensed up, sensing a trick question. The reporter cajoled: Don’t worry, animals don’t vote. Mr. Bloomberg smirked: “Well, we’re in the Bronx. …” The crowd moaned in response.

Mr. Bloomberg’s spokesman, Ed Skyler, clarified the remarks later. “It was a joke about corrupt party bosses,” he said, “and no one else should take offense.”