City Manager Jack Schnirman said that the state comptroller would conduct a “mini audit” and certify the city’s deficit to determine the total value of the bonds, a process that is expected to take several months. The City Council could choose to either finance the remaining deficit over 10 years, Schnirman said, or continue with the three-year plan. He also said that it is still too early to determine how much the Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the city for its storm-related costs, though the agency is expected to cover 90 percent.

“Basically, this is another step on the road to recovery, and there will be a process now in working with the state comptroller’s office,” Schnirman said. “We’re a few months down the road — we have to wait for the state comptroller’s process to begin — and then we’ll work on a strategy going forward.”

Weisenberg and city officials had called on state lawmakers to pass the bond measure for two years. Last June, the Senate and Assembly passed an earlier version of the bill to help ease the burden on the cash-strapped city as it grappled with storm-related expenses that may not be eligible for reimbursement by FEMA.

But the borrowing measure hit a snag: State lawmakers approved it, but the city was unable to issue the bonds because the bill had a June 30 deadline, hardly enough time to secure Cuomo’s signature or float a bond offering, officials said. At the Jan. 22 City Council meeting, the city approved a home rule request to the State Legislature in the hope of reapproving the measure, which would authorize the city to issue the bonds on or before June 30, 2015.

The bill signed by Cuomo was criticized by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative research group, which said that Cuomo had “rubber stamped” it and broken “with the state’s tradition of requiring distressed municipalities to submit to oversight by a control board.”