Nassau assessment mistakes could bring up to $1.5 million in refunds

A Nassau County assessment error affecting 842 homes led to erroneous tax hikes that could result in the county having to pay more than $1.5 million in refunds to taxpayers, new legislative documents show. 

The mistakes occurred when officials in the Department of Assessment failed to correctly apply an exemption available to nearly all the county's 385,000 homeowners, county officials said.

The exemption, meant to blunt big initial tax hikes under former County Executive Laura Curran's reassessment, allows homeowners to phase-in their new assessments over a five-year period.

The administration of County Executive Bruce Blakeman has acknowledged the errors, and the Nassau County Legislature is expected to vote Monday on a resolution to correct the assessment errors for the 842 homeowners.

Acting Nassau County Assessor Matthew Cronin told county legislators at a hearing last Wednesday that "human error" was to blame for the assessment mistakes.

"It's very hard to find the error once it is established in the system … It all looks OK, and that's the danger of it," Cronin said.

While Cronin said he's implemented quality control measures since taking over the Assessment Department in May, he said: "Eight hundred forty-two — I take that personally. And to all the homeowners, it's not good."

Cronin told legislators the errors occurred as they changed assessments on more than 800 homes that had had demolitions or fire damage.

The change in property value was placed in the column where the tax break was supposed to be. The result was that hundreds of homes got a smaller tax break than they were entitled to, county data show.

Scott Diamond, 71, a retired information technology professional, who owns a Levitt ranch in Levittown, told Newsday he was surprised by the small size of his exemption this year — about $7,000 in property value — when he first saw his school tax bill this month.

He said his school tax bill rose by $1,184, compared with last year. 

"I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know what," Diamond told Newsday.

After the exemption was corrected, Diamond received a $67,000 reduction in his home's value for this year, producing a $454 drop in his school taxes from 2021-22.

Homeowner assessments are supposed to be at full market value after five years.

"They made a manual change — wasn't anybody reviewing it?" Diamond asked. "It would've been spotted immediately if someone were looking over the shoulder of whoever did this."

A county spokesman did not respond to a question about Diamond's situation.

Nassau County Legis. Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport), the minority leader, questioned Cronin at the hearing about why neither he nor other members of the Blakeman administration attempted to alert the public to the problem.

"If it happens again, you will see me make an announcement," Cronin responded.

Democratic legislators first raised the issue at a news conference on Oct. 12.

Disputes over assessment errors have been common in Nassau for years.

Blakeman, a Republican who took office in January, campaigned on the need to reform the county assessment department.

Blakeman and majority Republicans on the County Legislature frequently criticized Curran, whom Blakeman defeated last November, for an "error-riddled" reassessment.

Several assessment experts had characterized Curran's reassessment as accurate and fair.

Blakeman has not yet announced a comprehensive assessment reform plan, saying he is awaiting the results of Comptroller Elaine Phillips' audit of the department

Asked about the mistakes affecting the 842 properties, county spokesman Chris Boyle told Newsday: “The Department of Assessment took immediate action to fix the human error, ensuring no taxpayers were harmed.”

County officials said they have given corrected data to the towns.

 Still, town officials responsible for creating tax bills using county data say they are seeing some fallout from the mistakes.

In North Hempstead Town, officials received tax payments from three homeowners before the corrections were made, Tax Receiver Charles Berman told Newsday.

The town will issue refunds to the taxpayers who overpaid in about six weeks, Berman said.

In Oyster Bay, owners of 14 properties who received incorrect county exemptions already have paid their taxes and will be issued refunds, town spokesman Brian Nevin said.

A spokesman for the Town of Hempstead did not respond to a request for comment.

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.