Nassau to ‘thaw’ assessments

County plans to revalue properties for 2019-20

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After five years in which Nassau County has not reassessed property values, the county is moving toward refiguring all Nassau properties’ worth for 2019-20. The eventual reassessment could lead to higher property-tax bills for some residents, according to one expert.

Nassau is one of two counties in New York that collects property taxes instead of smaller municipalities. For years, tax refunds have been a significant drain on the county’s finances. When County Executive Ed Mangano, a Bethpage Republican, took office in 2010, he pledged to freeze — that is, not update — property assessments for four years and in that time fix the system’s flaws.

So far Mangano and Republican county legislators have kept the 2011-12 assessments in place for the last five years, during which time market values have changed with the economy and Hurricane Sandy’s storm surges. The county executive — who won reelection in 2013 on an anti-tax-increase platform — now wants to keep the 2011-12 assessments for two more years, through the remainder of his current term, with an eye toward a new assessment taking effect for 2019-20.

Mangano spokesman Brian Nevin said that the original four-year plan’s extension was because of Sandy and prudent deliberation. “This process would have taken place earlier if not for Superstorm Sandy and its effects on Nassau,” Nevin wrote in an email. “Also, if anything has been learned from the past revaluation, it is that you cannot just put out new values for the sake of saying you have done a revaluation. Every aspect of this process must be reviewed and made sure that it is correct and fair to all of the property owners.”

Nevin said the Nassau Department of Assessment has undergone reorganization in recent years. He said the county now wants to hire a contractor to overhaul the department’s computer-modeling system, which would determine most property values (inspectors would need to visit certain unusual properties).

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