Groundhog Day in Nassau Assessment System

                                                                                    

Like most other county executives before him, Republican Bruce Blakeman campaigned for office last year on fixing the "broken" assessment system, which, in Nassau, has been "broken" for decades.

It has yet to be fixed.

And the same errors appear to be cropping up.

Scott Diamond, moderator of the 35,000-member Facebook page group "Nassau Grieve your Tax Assessment - Free", has posted that the Nassau Assessment Department has made the same error in calculating the January general tax bills for 842 taxpayers as it made in October school tax bills.

The county then admitted it miscalculated an exemption for those taxpayers, resulting in an about $1.5 million in tax refunds.

Now Diamond asserts they have done it again.

The Facebook group is run by Bellmore attorney Jeff Gold, a former member of the now-defunct Board of Assessors and also a former commissioner on the Assessment Review Commission.

Both Gold and Diamond are among the very few in Nassau who understand the county's complicated assessment system. Coincidentally, they were among the 842 who received the wrong bills in October.

Acting assessor Matt Cronin told the legislature,  when it inquired about the mistakes, that the incorrect bills were the result of "human error." 

But how did the same "human error" apparently occur again on the same properties for the general tax bills? 

General tax bills are usually lower than school tax bills so the total refunds this time are likely to be less than the $1.5 million.

There is also talk that the same North Hempstead Church that received an erroneous $677,000 school tax bill last fall is being hit with another erroneous bill for general taxes on its tax-exempt New Hyde Park property.

This time, the bill is allegedly close to $500,000.

Finally, a question that came up some 20 years ago, after the 2002 reassessment, when Gold was a member of the Board of Assessors: Who is legally responsible for signing the tentative tax rolls that came out Jan. 2?

Back then, the decision was that only the assessor, who was chairman of the Board of Assessors, or the acting assessor could sign the roll.

Now it appears that Cronin signed the roll as Chief Deputy Assessor, because his title of "acting assessor" title has expired. Blakeman appointed Cronin acting assessor in May. Under county law, commissioners or heads of departments can only be acting for six months.

Asked who can sign the tax roll, Gold responded in an email: "I am firmly convinced that the roll has to be signed by an Assessor or Acting Assessor."

Blakeman's office has been asked about all this. Awaiting a response.