Blakeman should continue Curran's Nassau assessment fix

Had Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Comptroller Elaine Phillips waited two days to announce their audit of the assessment system introduced Tuesday, they could have commemorated an anniversary, and started a tradition.

Thursday marks four years since former Nassau County Comptroller Jack Schnirman announced his audit of the assessment system, at the beginning of his term. That analysis, which was expected to take nine months, was released 46 months later.

A system as complex and befuddling as Nassau assessment must be audited regularly, and this analysis won’t fix the problems any more than others have. The problems don’t center on the assessment department.

Under state law, assessments can’t rise more than 6% in a year or 20% in five years. That’s workable if you reassess annually, but Nassau failed to do that about 70 of the past 80 years, including the past two. The "six and 20" rule demands annual revaluing because irregular valuation demands hikes larger than the law allows.

Nassau has failed to perform this basic function under Republicans and Democrats alike. That failure helped create a system of excessive grieving that's put $500 million worth of taxpayer money in the pockets of tax-appeal firms and run up billions in debt as the county refunded money to school districts.

Former County Executive Laura Curran did some good assessment work. Her administration revalued properties after her predecessor’s eight-year freeze, with a high degree of accuracy. And they enacted a plan to phase in fairness, over five years, for bills that shrank for those who grieved and swelled for those who didn't.

Implementation was difficult, and errors were made, but the goal was achieved: a largely accurate and defensible roll that could stand up to grievances.

Then, amid a crippling pandemic and skyrocketing home prices, Curran understandably froze the 2022-2023 roll in 2020. Last year, she froze it again but should not have. High prices are not a blip. Tax bills need to reflect them.

Blakeman, who largely campaigned by bashing Curran’s handling of the system, has no plan, save another audit.

The root of dissatisfaction with Nassau property taxes is not the poor assessment system but the fact that taxes are so high. Nothing we do to change assessments will change that. And prudent attempts to reform the laws that bedevil Nassau — ending the "county guarantee," allowing a margin of error for assessments before refunds are triggered, and allowing appeals to result in increased valuations — have gotten zero traction because of the political clout of the groups that could lose out.

Blakeman’s best play would be to continue the movement toward fairness that Curran’s phase-in is providing, assess properties regularly, and begin to turn the tide of appeals by fighting them rather than granting them.

No audit can change that.