By one measure, Nassau's complex assessment system has improved

                                                                                

Every Nassau politician for the past 25 years have complained about Nassau's "broken" property tax assessment system.

It never seems to get any better despite various fixes, revaluations, reassessments, updates and trending.

But Nassau Budget Director Andrew Persich said last week that numbers indicate the system has improved despite continuing complaints.

At last week's Legislative Budget Review Committee hearing, while Persich was going over the county's financial outlook, he said Nassau hoped to bring down its estimated commercial tax refund backlog, which consists of overpaid property taxes owed to Nassau businesses after they successfully challenged their assessments.

He noted that the estimated commercial backlog -- which has topped $700 million in the past -- was down to $383 million by the end of 2022 after the county paid off about $200 million. He hoped another $200 million will be paid off this year from assigned reserves.

Persich projected that the county likely will always have $75 to $100 million in estimated commercial tax refunds each year "no matter what we do."

Because the county has established assigned reserves, "now we have the means to fund it and keep it current," he said.

Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport) was skeptical.

Kevan Abrahams

"This goes back five administrations," he said of the backlog.

Persich's $75 to $100 million estimate is "the same number I remember when we did the first reassessment," Abrahams said.

He's right.

Abrahams has the longest institutional memory of any legislator besides Presiding Officer Rich Nicolello, (R-New Hyde Park), who was a member of the first legislature that replaced the old Board of Supervisor in 1996.

Abrahams was financial director for legislative Democrats before he was elected to the legislature in 2001.

"Sounds like we’ve done multiple reassessments, but we’re not improving on the current liability," Abrahams said.

In 2002-2003, Nassau did its first countywide reassessment of all properties in more than 60 years in order to settle a lawsuit filed by minority communities over unequal treatment. But also, the county was racking up $100 million each year in commercial assessments and $30 million in residential refunds.

While the county was paying the residential taxes from operating funds, it was running up debt by borrowing to pay off the commercial refunds. 

The reassessment started under then-County Executive Executive Tom Gulotta and elected Nassau Assessor Charles O'Shea, both Republicans.

Subsequent elected Assessor Harvey Levinson, a Democrat, continued to update the assessments during his tenure from 2004 through 2008 when the job became an appointed position.

Assessor Ted Jankowski, hired by Democratic County Executive Tom Suozzi in 2009,  also updated the values until he was fired by Republican County Executive Ed Mangano in late 2010 because of gross errors. Mangano then froze the assessment roll from 2011 on.

Democratic County Executive Laura Curran ordered a reassessment when she took office in 2018, but froze the roll for her last two years because of the impact the pandemic was having on values. Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman froze the roll this January -- and likely will freeze the roll against next year since he is currently operating without an assessor.

That's five administrations.

But Persich noted that Nassau County's total assessed value has soared since 2000. The fact that the liability has stayed at $75 to $100 million for more than 20 years shows the revaluations and reassessments have had an effect, he said.

"We have to give kudos to that because it hasn't gone up," Persich said.

That's true. According to the U.S. inflation calculator, $100,000 in 2000 would be $177,000 today.

So, in effect, the assessment system has fewer errors.

Hard to believe, isn't it?