When Gov. George Pataki first ran for governor four years ago, he put forward a small agenda he believed could help him defeat three term incumbent Mario Cuomo: reinstate the death penalty, cut the state income tax and reform welfare.

As an incumbent seeking re-election this year, Pataki chose to reflect on his accomplishments of the past four years rather than unveil a sweeping new agenda. Instead of making bold new promises, he simply said he will continue on the path he has taken the state. He also said he will continue to push for charter schools and more tax cuts, try for additional criminal justice reforms, and tinker with a welfare system that was over-hauled on the state and federal levels. "The best New York is yet to come," he repeatedly said.

Now with one of the largest gubernatorial election victories in New York to his credit, any discussion of what his next term will entail is couched with the belief the governor will seek a spot on the GOP national ticket in 2000. Will he return, as many predict, to the conservative ways of his first two years in order to court attention from the national party? Or will he be the moderate of the last two years? "By not making too many promises, he has the flexibility to determine what he needs to do to become a more attractive national candidate," says Utica pollster John Zogby.

But while the Republican's strong showing in New York may garner some notice on the national level, it won't make things any easier for him in his home state. Despite the fact that Pataki and his aides say the governor received the mandate he lacked in 1994, when he garnered less than 50 percent of the vote, Democrats think otherwise. While Pataki performed well personally, his coattails were non-existent. The GOP actually lost a seat in the Assembly, while makinl,- no aains in the Senate.

As a result, Republicans and Democrats alike say Pataki faces the same problems getting his agenda through as he did in his first four years. "I think basically you will see the same things you've been seeing the last four years," says Assembly Republican Minority Leader John Faso. "All the parties are still there with the same relative amount of strength."

Pataki, as usual, is keeping his second term plans close to the vest, choosing to unveil them during his State of the State address and in his budget address next month. But much of what he and others connected to the process did and said before, during and since the campaign provide a litany of clues as to what New Yorkers can expect from a second Pataki administration.

The governor regularly says one of his top priorities will be to protect the ignore than $5 billion in tax cuts that are due to be phased in over the next three years. Included in this is the STAR program, a school property tax reduction offered this year for senior citizens which will be expanded to all homeowners and will cost an additional $753 million to implement. There also are about $2 billion in additional business tax cuts slated for the next three years.

Meanwhile, members of the business community that have worked closely with the administration predict Pataki will seek new tax cuts as well over the next four years. CHANGENY President Thomas Carroll expects a reduction in the gross receipts tax on energy, similar to the tax break granted in Pataki's first term to farmers. Robert Ward, of the Business Council of New York, says Pataki might also push to 'expand a corporate tax rate reduction approved this year by the Legislature that will include banks and insurance companies.

It is still unclear just how the state will pay for many of the tax cuts that will take effect in the next few years. But Pataki has said he anticipates a state budget surplus in excess of $1 billion in the upcoming year that can make up for the lost revenue. Senate -Republican Majority Leader Toseph Bruno, Pataki's key legislative ally, and Sen. Nicholas Spano, the Westchester Republican who is one of Pataki's closest friends in the Legislature, say they expect the governor will also try to hold the line on spending. In. the governors first two years, after all, he wielded the budget ax to help pay for his $3.9 billion personal income tax cut.

Pataki eliminated about 22,000 state jobs in his first four years, and during the campaign said that he expects to again trim the state workforce through attrition in the next few years. Higher education, welfare and mental health advocates believe Pataki may again try to balance the budget on their backs. Until Pataki released an election-year budget that significantly boosted state funding, he had consistently sought reductions in higher education, welfare and mental health spending.

The state and city universities of New York have gone since 1995 without a tuition increase. Student and other opponents of Pataki's higher education policies expect the governor in his upcoming budget to try to hike tuition, as he did in 1995 with a record $750 increase, while at the same time looking to again cut and alter the state's chief student financial aid program. "It's going to be de'j'a-vu all over again," says John Mather, president of the Preservation Society of the State University of New York (SLTNY). "It's going to be a terrible time for SUNY and CUNY."

Welfare advocates, meanwhile, believe the governor will again seek to cut benefits. In the past, Pataki has proposed chopping benefits by 45 percent over five years.

If he does so again, it will include his plan, announced during the campaign, for a type of apprenticeship program in which welfare recipients work in the construction field to learn building, carpentry, plumbing or electrical skills.

As with tax cuts and welfare, criminal justice reform was among the governor's major priorities in his first term. Since 1995, the state has reinstated the death penalty, ended paro.e and work release for violent felons, and passed a law requiring felony sex offenders to register their names on a list kept by local police.

Pataki said during the campaign that he plans to again push for changes that were squelched in the Assembly during his first term; Bruno, whose house during the first four years even went beyond the governor's criminal justice agenda, says he expects the governor to push for a school violence package in his second term.

The governor repeatedly said during the campaign that he schools. More plans to make another effort to create charter schools. More than 30 states have authorized the creation of the privately-operated, publicly-funded schools. Pataki has twice proposed charter school legislation, only to see it die in both houses of the Legislature. The association representing e state school boards an the state's poweru teachers union have opposed charter schools, and many lawmakers fear they would take needed money away from public schools that are already struggling.

Pataki in a second term also will need to find the money to continue phasing in an array of educational programs already approved by the Legislature. Included are an expanded state funded pre-kindergarten program, a six-week summer reading intensive English courses for students from foreign-language-speaking households.

On the environmental front, Pataki will continue to announce clean air and water projects that will be funded with money from a $1.75 billion environmental bond act approved two years ago by voters. To date, only $569 million in bond act money has been committed, according to Pataki's budget office.

Environmental advocates say Patak will also have to deal with refunding, and possibly expanding, the state s Superfund program designed to pay for the cleanup of toxic sites. Pataki has already formed a committee-which advocates complain is meeting in private-to make recommendations on the future of the Superfund program.

Health care too will be a major issue in the governor, second term, particularly in 1999 when the Health Care Reform Act expires, legislative officials and advocates say. Passed in 1996, the legislation pushed by Pataki deregulated the system for setting hospital rates, except when it came to managed care companies.

Bruno says Pataki also will likely continue to seek increased ffinding for the state's Child Health Plus program, which provides health insurance for the children of the working poor. The governor will need to find a way to pay for a program announced this year to provide more community housing for the mentally disabled, Spano says.

The health insurance and environmental issues will allow Pataki to reach out to moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats as he tries to build his base for a possible national run, pollster Zogby says.

Yet there are some ominous clouds hanging over the governor's second term. Federal investigations into his administration's fund-raising policies are ongoing. A federal prosecutor is reportedly investigating whether political contributions played a role in prisoners being granted parole. There also are investigations into whether campaign contributors received special treatment from the administration when it came to the awarding of state contracts. Federal prosecutors are reportedly investigating whether a contributor to the Republican state committee was given favored treatment in the bidding on a $3 billion rail tunnel connecting Grand Central Station to the Long Island Railroad.

As for his national aspirations, Pataki insists he is not thinking a lot about it, despite evidence to the contrary. New York Republican officials with close ties to Pataki have been touting the governor as a possible presidential contender in 2000. National pundits say if he is to find his way on to the ticket, it more likely would be as a vice presidential nominee.

For his part, Pataki says: "My focus has been, and is, on the future of New York state."