Tomorrow is the last day to grieve your Nassau property tax assessment

                                                                            

Photo from last year. Laveman no longer is ARC chairman

What a difference an election makes.

Nassau Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman, at the urging of county lawmakers, this year extended the deadline for filing property tax grievances with the Assessment Review Commission from March 1 to May 2, citing disruptions in the housing market from the pandemic.

 (Blakeman actually extended it through April 30, but that was a Saturday so he moved the deadline to the next business day -- Monday.)

Former Democratic County Executive Laura Curran, who implemented a countywide reassessment in 2018,  last year had also extended the deadline to April 30 because of pandemic distortions.

But nobody this year is urging homeowners to grieve their values with the same urgency as they did in the past -- even though homeowners might again get an automatic assessment reduction if they grieve.

Last year Republican county lawmakers held a news conference urging taxpayers to challenge their assessments. Legislators promoted tax workshops. Hempstead Town Republican officials set up workshops and sent out mailings to publicize them..

Even Curran, who was seeking re-election, mailed postcards to residents telling them how to challenge their assessments.

This year, though Democratic lawmakers continued to send notice about tax workshops, there were far fewer Republican promotions, postings and publicity.

The difference?

Republican Blakeman was elected in January and took responsibility for Nassau's complicated assessment system.

He also became responsible for any tax refunds resulting from erroneous assessments.

Tomorrow also is the last day for homeowners unhappy with decisions by ARC to continue their 2021 grievances by filing for Small Claims Assessment Review in court. 

Any SCAR assessment reductions granted after tax bills go out in October have to be paid back to homeowners through tax refunds.

For years, the county paid about $30 million annually in tax refunds because of successful SCAR challenges.

Then-Republican County Executive Ed Mangano in 2011  instituted a mass settlement program in which ARC granted reductions to nearly everybody who grieved.

The program reduced tax refunds to near zero but also skewed the assessment rolls, which shifted millions of dollars in taxes onto homeowners who did not grieve. The program also happened to make millions of dollars for tax appeals attorneys.

That was one reason Curran reassessed when she took office.

But now the cycle appears to be starting all over again.

Under Mangano's program, ARC every year reduced the level of assessment.

What is the level of assessment? 

It is a complicated calculation that almost nobody understands outside of tax appeal attorneys. It is the fraction of the market value of a property that is used to calculate tax bills.

Tax attorneys generally agree that lowering the level of assessment automatically results in an assessment reduction for most property owners who have filed challenges. But homeowners who do not grieve do not get this reduction. 

Curran's reassessment used a one percent level of assessment. ARC last year lowered the level to .95 percent when considering challenges to Curran's reassessment values for the 21-22 tax year, the first tax year that used the new assessments.

Despite the lowered level of assessment, Curran still faced $17 million in refunds last year without the mass settlement program.

Though unverified, two sources say ARC again lowered the assessment level to .8 percent for values that will be used to calculate the tax bills that come out in October and January. Those values became final April 1.

Bellmore Attorney Jeff Gold, who runs a Facebook page instructing homeowners on how to grieve their assessments on their own without paying a significant portion of savings to a tax appeals firm, supported fellow Democrat Currans' reassessment.

Jeff Gold

But Gold last year also urged his more than 30,000 followers to grieve their assessments, saying it looked like ARC was handing out reductions like candy.

Gold this year has been posting repeated notices about tomorrow's deadline for grieving.

He said in an email, "The County is f*cked. There is no way to fix the assessment system.  It’s broken for good, and they will have to give out reductions to 100’s of thousands of residents."

He referred to the county guaranty, a state law that requires the county to repay the taxes received by all taxing jurisdictions, including school districts and towns, when refunds are ordered.

"Without adjustments to the County guarantee, the system is unworkable and will remain so," Gold wrote.