By JOSEPH KELLARD
Reilly specifically questioned the hospital's Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program, which it entered with the Oceanside School District in 1995. That year, SNCH settled a longstanding lawsuit with the Oceanside North East Civic Association. The settlement stipulated that the hospital pay the school district $23,000 annually for five years for 13 houses it then owned.
As a non-profit organization, the hospital is exempt from taxation on its properties; thus, the agreement it entered to pay the above amount in lieu of taxes was designated "voluntary," according to the stipulation. Since entering the PILOT Program in 1995, SNCH purchased three other properties, all on Oceanside Road, and all to be converted into parking lots. Following the 1999-2000 school year, when its five-year agreement had expired, the hospital continued to pay the school district $23,000 annually.
"As long as the hospital remains in a financial position to make these payments, we will continue to do so," Joseph Quagliata, president of SNCH, told the Herald last week.
"What bothers me," said Reilly, who headed the opposition to the hospital's expansion project at the Town of Hemsptead Zoning Board of Appeals hearing in April, "is even if the hospital were to give a check to the Oceanside School District for, say, $23,000 for a period of five years, which runs over $100,000, what benefit does that have to the community?"
Reilly and other residents questioned why the hospital didn't make adjustments to the $23,000 it pays for the three Oceanside Road properties it purchased in recent years, and whether the loss of general fund taxes on those properties impacts Oceanside residents.
Quagliata said that the stipulation actually called for a reduction in the amount the hospital pays if the houses were sold back to the community. "That in fact happened with at least one of the houses on that list," Quagliata said. He pointed out that the three properties were purchased subsequent to the dates covered by the settlement.
"We have no obligation to pay the $23,000, much less pay anything in addition to it," Quagliata said. "We feel that we've adequately adjusted by continuing to make payments that we have no legal obligation to make."
Quagliata argues further that most of the 13 properties were converted to parking lots, and that the hospital has far more parking spaces available than are required by zoning laws.
"And we've done that specifically because we try to be sensitive to the community saying to us, 'We ask you to do everything to minimize the amount of parking on the streets adjacent to the hospital,'" he added.
Reilly questioned whether the PILOT payments actually reduce taxes for Oceanside residents. "My question is, what is the $23,000 being spent for?" Reilly said. "I don't know where that money is, how it is spent, and if they are accounting for it. Does it in any way impact on the homeowner's contribution of the school taxes?"
"That $23,000 is counted as a revenue that helps offset taxes," Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown said. "The $23,000 is part of the $91 million in revenue to help us fund the budget. So it goes into our revenue budget, with money coming in, not our expenditure budget. Because we get that $23,000, we don't have to raise taxes by that amount."
"Certainly, the general tax revenues that would go to Nassau County have been completely lost for these properties," Reilly argued.
Randy Yunker, a spokesperson for Nassau County assessor, Charles O'Shea, told the Herald, "[The general property taxes] on the three properties the hospital purchased last year are redistributed to taxpayers throughout the entire county."
Said Reilly, "I think [Nassau County Executive] Tom Suozzi has got to step up and say, 'If these non-profit organizations want to remain non-profit, they should at least pay the taxes on the property as part of their non-profit status.'"
