Frozen Nassau tax rolls don't reflect successful tax challenges, GOP lawmakers say
Publication last month of Nassau's 2022-23 tentative tax roll, frozen at the prior year's values to prevent sharp assessment swings due to the coronavirus pandemic, failed to include reductions that homeowners received through legal settlement notices, Republican lawmakers said Monday.
The assessment roll for the 2022-23 tax year, released Jan. 4, affects school property taxes that will arrive in October 2022, and general bills to be mailed in January 2023.
The roll includes properties' presettlement values, according to some residents and GOP county legislators.
The county has provided, or is in the process of providing, reductions through offers to homeowners who challenged their 2021-22 values, which were published at the start of 2020. That roll is to be finalized by March 31.
Offers of assessment reductions are not final, a county spokeswoman said.
Some homeowners who have received notice of assessment reductions said the 2022-23 roll doesn't reflect their successful challenges to their 2021-22 values.
"The county failed to include these settlements, these settlement values, in its new assessment roll," Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) said Monday at a news conference in in Mineola.
"Residents who just settled their cases, just got the county to agree to a lesser value, now have to go out and challenge the value again because the county went back up to the higher value," Nicolello said.
"You're forcing residents year after year to challenge their assessment, even after you've agreed that your assessed value is too high," Nicolello said.
In December, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said the county would "pause" valuations, keeping 2022-23 values at 2021-22 levels until the booming housing market driven by the pandemic had settled down.
Justine DiGiglio, a county spokeswoman, said in a statement that Nassau was abiding by the same timeline "every year" and said residents can challenge their 2022-23 assessments by April 30.
"As always, state law mandates that all assessors in the state may not make any changes unilaterally to the tentative roll once published — as the 2022-2023 tentative roll was this January, which is why homeowners are encouraged to file a grievance again by April 30, 2021, if they believe their paused tentative assessed property value is not accurate," DiGiglio said.
"The Republican Majority continues to demonstrate that they don’t know how property assessment works — either that or they are deliberately confusing and exploiting homeowners," DiGiglio said.
A total of 219,776 Class 1 residential grievances were filed for the 2021-22 tax year, DiGiglio said.
Nassau has not officially granted reductions because the Assessment Review Commission is still working on challenges, DiGiglio said.
Final decisions stemming from challenges will be made by March 31, she said.
Bob Krauss, 71, a retired broker from Plainview, said the county Assessment Review Commission notified him in a "stipulation of settlement" that his assessed value was dropping from about $652,000 to $596,000 after his successful tax challenge.
He said he signed that letter and returned it to the county, but the reduced valuation isn't reflected in his 2022-23 property valuation.
"We’re dealing with government," Krauss said in an interview.
Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.
'I haven't stopped crying' Over the past year, Newsday has followed a pair of migrant families as they navigate new surroundings and an immigration system that has been overwhelmed. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.
'I haven't stopped crying' Over the past year, Newsday has followed a pair of migrant families as they navigate new surroundings and an immigration system that has been overwhelmed. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.
