Nassau County and County Executive, Edward P. Mangano’s office has made a lot of noise about reforming the ‘broken property tax assessment system’, but are some of the new changes making things worse for local homeowners?
Mangano has admitted the Nassau property tax system is badly broken, and vowed to deliver the justice residents have only so far been able to gain through the grievance process. However, while well intentioned some may argue that some changes not only avoid core issues, but could be denying many more from the real justice they are owed, and for longer.
According to Nassau County’s own website the average local business and home owner has been overcharged 10%. This has reportedly led to putting tax payers under a $1.6 billion burden of debt.
The office says reforms include attempting to check for accuracy before bills are sent out instead of after, but this doesn’t in itself fix the underlying problems or faulty assessments.
One of the most controversial reforms is cracking down on appeals. This process reportedly costs the county over $250 million in waste each year. Much of this is probably administrative, and far from the fault of residents, when they are admittedly being overcharged.
Moving to 4 year assessments versus annual also raises big questions. There is a chance this is probably not in the best interest of those whose values have dropped, are dropping, are being impacted by storms or other changes. It could give the county a 4 year free ride of higher taxes before lowering them.
Ultimately this still leaves Long Island homeowners with the urgent need to get third party help in fixing their property taxes each year.