Laura Curran schedules 57 assessment meetings

Nassau County, which is in the midst of the first countywide reassessment in nearly a decade, will hold 57 community meetings over the next few months aimed at helping residents understand their new property values and the process for challenging them.

County legislators and officials of the Assessment Review Commission and the Department of Assessment will host three meetings in each of the county's 19 legislative districts. The meetings began Jan. 8 and will run through the end of April.

The deadline for filing an appeal with the Assessment Review Commission is April 30.

Staffers from ARC will be on hand at the meetings to help residents understand the assessment appeals process, how to check the status of their challenge, learn how to file without a lawyer and determine if they have a good case for filing an appeal.

Assessment department officials also will be at the meetings to answer taxpayer questions about their assessed values and senior exemptions.

“Comprehensive community meetings with our departments’ experts are key to continuing our efforts to provide property owners with the resources they need to fully understand the reassessment process and how to appeal their new assessment," Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said in a news release announcing the meetings.

Last year, Curran ordered the countywide reassessment that affects more than 400,000 commercial and residential properties. The reassessment was necessary restore accuracy to the tax rolls, county officials said.

Curran's predecessor, Republican County Executive Edward Mangano, froze the tax rolls in 2011. Years of successful taxpayer challenges resulted in a shift of some of the tax burden onto residents who did not challenge their assessments.

The reassessment is expected to produce tax increases for 52 percent of homeowners and reductions for 48 percent of the rest, according to county data.

Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) said, "the grievance workshops are nothing new. We have been doing them for years. The grievance workshops do not take the place of public forums where residents can question the County Executive and Assessor [David] Moog about reassessment. The highly taxed residents of this county deserve better."

Christine Geed, a Curran spokeswoman, said Curran "will be attending many of these meetings and visiting" the satelitte office. 

A satellite county assessment office staffed by tax specialists at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow will remain open indefinitely, county officials said Tuesday. Three other satellite offices in Westbury, Roslyn and Lido Beach are scheduled to close at the end of January.

"Reassessment is not up for debate — it’s a done deal . . . We leave it up to the Presiding Officer of the Legislature to hold additional hearings if he wants to hear more from the public about reassessment."

Geed said the, "schedule of smaller neighborhood meetings with ARC and DOA and one-on-one discussions are more meaningful for our property owners. These community meetings represent a new approach."

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

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.