Mayor Gavin Newsom did not hesitate one bit when stating his greatest worry for The City on Thursday during a meeting with reporters on midyear budget cuts.

“My biggest concern in The City is the commercial property tax reassessments,” the mayor said. “Not in the residential sphere, primarily in the commercial sphere.”

You could tell he meant it when he said, “It should make everyone pause and be concerned.”

“That’s the number one thing I’m now focused on from a macro-economic perspective,” Newsom said.

As tough as payroll tax revenue has been, it is not “by comparable terms as big of a problem as property taxes,” Newsom said.

The decline in commercial property tax revenue is hardly a surprise with the economy in declines. The dour situation has caused businesses to consolidate, close shop or move out of The City.

Last January, “there were almost no major commercial transactions taking place due to unavailability of credit and investor uncertainty about the state of the economy,” a recent report from the City Controller’s Office said.

The mayor discussed the ordeal while expressing serious concern for The City’s half-billion dollar deficit next fiscal year.