Nassau adjusting more than 40,000 property values after homeowners weigh in 

Nassau County Assessor David Moog said Friday  that he was adjusting the values on more than 40,000 of the county’s 386,000 residential properties after hearing from thousands of homeowners about errors in their new property tax assessments.

Moog called it normal to make corrections after homeowners are notified about their new values following a full reassessment, which was authorized earlier this year by Democratic County Executive Laura Curran.

As required by state law, Nassau mailed assessment disclosure notices to more than 400,000 residential and commercial property owners 60 days before the new values are included in the tentative assessment roll issued Jan. 2. The new values first will be used in the October 2020 school tax bills.

“As was mentioned many times, the 60-day period after the . . . notices were sent out is a time where taxpayers could meet with staff to see if our assessments needed refining and to adjust for data correction,” Moog said in a statement. "Some of the changes are on individual parcels where other adjustments were made that affected blocks, or groups of properties.”

Moog did not give examples of the types of changes being made.

Moog first acknowledged the 40,000 changes on News 12 Long Island Thursday during a joint interview with Hempstead Town Tax Receiver Donald Clavin.

Moog said taxpayer “feedback has resulted in us [re-evaluating] some of the assumptions made in our model. We will be changing approximately 40,000 parcels based upon the taxpayer input.”

Moog said Friday that assessment staff has met with over 4,000 taxpayers and received more than 14,000 telephone and email inquiries since the disclosure notices were mailed.

Also Friday, the county legislature’s Office of Budget Review issued an updated report on the estimated impact of the new values on homeowners’ property taxes. It said nearly 75,000 homeowners can expect to see tax increases of more than 25 percent.

The budget review office reported earlier that 52 percent of all Nassau homeowners are projected to see tax increases while 48 percent are estimated to receive reductions in their tax bills.

The updated report, “confirms that reassessment will have a profound impact on tens of thousands of Nassau homeowners,” said Legis. Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park), the county legislature’s presiding officer.

Referring to the legislature’s hearing Wednesday night on reassessment, which drew 700 residents, Nicolello said, “It is clear the public is deeply concerned about what is coming. We are calling for County Executive Curran and Assessor Moog to hold community meetings all over Nassau to speak to the people directly and answer their questions.”

Clavin, a Republican, also called for community forums. But Moog said in the News 12 interview that individual sit-downs with taxpayers are “much more productive.”

William Biamonte, chief of staff for Democratic county lawmakers, said, “The administration has several weeks to make any corrections and changes. During this time, we will continue to closely monitor their outreach and progress as the deadline approaches.”

Disclosure of the 40,000 changes comes after the county said it would have to correct 20,000 disclosure notices because they included assessments that increased by more than the 6 percent allowed by state law.

It also follows the county's amendment of 60,000 tax impact notices online because tentative values rather than final values had been used to calculate the estimated tax impact.

Although not associated with the reassessment, another error occurred last week when the county robocalled 400,000 people, rather than 3,500 senior citizens, about a looming senior tax exemption deadline. Hundreds of anxious seniors crowded into the assessment department Tuesday to clarify their exemption status.

Homeowners still are receiving mailed tax impact notices that estimate the change in property taxes resulting from the new values.

Tax impact notices for Class 2 properties, which are high-rise apartment buildings, condos and co-ops, and commercial parcels have yet to be completed.

Moog had predicted that tax impact notices for these properties would be online last Monday. On Friday, he said the notices will be online by Monday and mailed next week.