By Scott Brinton
It's considered a politically neutral post; that is, it doesn't involve a whole lot of issues or policy-making decisions. The assessor's office values properties based on predetermined rules, which never stirred much media attention before.
This year, however, the assessor's race -- which pits incumbent Charles O'Shea (R-North Merrick) against Democrat Harvey Levinson, of Garden City -- is grabbing headlines.
For starters, the county recently completed a three-year reassessment project that overhauled all of its property values. The county was under a court order to do so after a group of minority residents sued the county in 1997, claiming that Nassau's old assessment system placed an unfair tax burden on many lower-income, minority neighborhoods, while giving a tax break to several wealthier, primarily white communities.
The plaintiffs prevailed, and the county was ordered to immediately revamp its arcane, outmoded assessment system, which was based on 1938 building costs, with 1964 land values added in.
As county assessor, O'Shea oversaw the politically charged process of redoing all of Nassau's assessments, which wound down in 2002. Residents recently received property-tax bills that used the revised values, which were based on current fair-market prices. O'Shea says the company assigned the $34 million contract to recalculate the values -- Cole, Layer and Trumble -- got roughly 85 to 95 percent of them correct.
Nassau County now "has the most accurate [assessment] roll of any large municipality in the state," says O'Shea.
Levinson, however, contends that the roll is still laden with errors. With 10 percent of properties incorrectly valued, some 40,000 homeowners are left with inaccurate property-tax bills, he says.
Getting property values right is critical, says Levinson. "If we don't get this correct, the county could go into serious, serious financial turmoil," he said.
In particular, Levinson takes issue with the way waterfront and luxury homes (those selling for a $1 million or more) were valued. Many of the properties, Levinson says, were undervalued during reassessment, meaning their owners pay less in property taxes than they should -- and other homeowners must make up the difference.
As an example, Levinson cites Billy Joel's North Shore mansion, for which he paid $22.5 million. Levinson chastised the assessor's office for valuing it at around $8 million.
O'Shea, however, says that simply because Joel paid over $20 million for the home doesn't mean it's worth that much. Similar homes in the neighborhood aren't selling for more than $10 million, he says. Joel's purchase of the home failed to drive up neighborhood prices, so, as O'Shea explains it, a "new market" wasn't established by the sale.
Joel, says O'Shea, wanted the house, so he was willing to pay more than it was worth. The county, however, bases its values on true fair-market appraisals.
Levinson also attacks the county's valuation of waterfront homes. Jeff Gold, a Bellmore Democrat, is a member of the Nassau County Board of Assessors and a Hempstead Town Council candidate. He first raised the issue of waterfront valuation. He noted that, in his own neighborhood, many waterfront houses were undervalued when compared with recent home sales. Gold says Cole, Layer and Trumble's computer program failed to account for the steep price differences between waterfront homes and mainland houses. A waterfront home could easily be worth $100,000 more than a similar house only a block away.
Gold called on the assessor's office to redo waterfront assessments. It did, but only for Bellmore, a move that Gold charged was purely political.
O'Shea says Democratic detractors have latched onto waterfront homes as a partisan issue. But, he says, people must recognize that waterfront homes account for only 4 percent of all Nassau County properties. Moreover, he says, the county plans to address waterfront and luxury home valuation during annual updates of its assessment rolls.
Beyond the issues, O'Shea and Levinson are competing in a radically altered political climate than Nassau County candidates did just two years ago. Before 2001, when Democratic County Executive Thomas Suozzi and Comptroller Harvey Levinson were swept into office, Republican candidates for countywide offices were considered sure bets. But Suozzi and Levinson rode a wave of anti-Republican sentiment after former GOP Executive Thomas Gulotta (R-North Merrick) was charged with leading the county to near bankruptcy.
Now, Levinson is seeking to capitalize on that same anti-Republican sentiment to win office. Levinson has made sure the public knows that Suozzi backs him. And Levinson has vowed to "work with Tom Suozzi to end patronage and corruption in county government."
Suozzi appointed Levinson in 2002 to examine how Cole, Layer and Trumble handled reassessment. When Levinson issued a scathing report on the project last March, O'Shea said it was obviously intended to give Levinson political ammunition for a race against him in November. Levinson denied the charge, but is now running for the assessor's post.
Levinson said of his report, "It was an honest critique, and I think it's been proven correct."
O'Shea, 45, earned an undergraduate degree from Duke University and a law degree from Fordham. Before winning the assessor's post, he spent 11 years in the New York State Assembly, representing the 19th District. He also served as an assistant district attorney with the Nassau County District Attorney's Office and a lawyer in the county attorney's office.
Levinson, 64, received his undergraduate degree from New York University's School of Commerce and his master's degree in criminal law and trial advocacy from Georgetown. He was with Nassau County's Legal Aid Society early in his law career. In 1975, he joined the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, and he remained there until his retirement in 2002.
