Thursday, October 1, 2026
The candidates for our state offices, incumbents and challengers, have been out campaigning, regaling voters with claims that they are the right people for the jobs that need filling in Albany. They will take up the fight in the Capitol, they insist, to do the best job for us, their constituents. They cite their talent, experience and vision, and their ability to solve even the thorniest of problems.
But the sad irony is that the thorniest problems often remain unsolved. Take, for instance, the conundrum of property assessment in Nassau County. After the school districts establish their budgets, the state sees to additional school funding via foundation aid, the School Tax Relief program and the like. But it is the county that determines the value of real estate, and from that comes our school tax bills. In my case, and those of many other seniors trying to stay in their longtime homes, this process is daunting, confusing and sometimes heartbreaking.
Succeeding elections bring us Democrats and Republicans. Each of these entities has demonstrated a philosophy of how to deal with assessments and taxes. One party hollers about fairness and equity, and claims that they will absolutely get it right — for the benefit of taxpayers, of course. In 2019, then County Executive Laura Curran gave us a Taxpayer Protection Plan, promising that elusive equity. My school taxes continued to climb.
Then the other guys came in, claiming they were the true champions of the citizenry when it came to property taxes. Their particular talent seemed to be granting homeowners lots of assessment “relief.” My school taxes continue to climb.
Neither party seems capable of actually solving this particularly thorny problem. And leavened into their mystifying blend of ideas is a category of businesses that, their advertisements promise, will help us grieve the injustices that the property tax formula creates. These companies tout their acumen and their results. How about the lady in Merrick who got a new kitchen with the money XYZ company saved her?
Is it just coincidence that these companies are among the top contributors to our political office seekers? And their generosity is bipartisan, because it turns out that business is good no matter who is at the helm in Mineola.
While all of this is going on, seniors like me, frustrated and dejected, quietly hire real estate agents to deliver us from all of this “good” news as our ever-rising taxes leave us with no choice but to sell the homes we love. I’m 79, and the increases in school taxes have come like annual infestations of locusts — about $10,000 in additional taxes for schools alone in the past several years. I call everybody — state and county politicians, school district administrators, the property assessors — and they all say the same thing: “It’s not me.” None of them, it seems, is the problem.
The assessor tells me my house is valuable. I tell him I have made it so through 35 years of sweat, my own hard work. I remind him that it’s my home; it’s where I live. He is unmoved, seeming to say, without using the words, that if I can’t pay, they’ll get someone else in here who can.
At this point, 46 years after I began paying property taxes, I have come to the conclusion that the assessment of property is no longer a viable method of funding our schools. If you’re a senior, you’re a target.
Several years ago, I tried to persuade my local state representative to use some of his vision in Albany to figure out an alternative way to fund the schools that doesn’t target senior property owners for residential extinction. He simply dismissed the idea, saying the current system was the best one.
The subject has come up time after time on area newspapers’ editorial pages, but gets no traction from the political class.
One day soon I will go see the assessor. I am not optimistic. In the meantime, our candidates, incumbents and challengers, will continue to tell us how they’re going to help us. And the grievance companies will continue to prosper. The impossible system of taxation by way of property assessment will continue.
And quietly, all over Nassau County, bewildered longtime residents will be forced from their homes, victims of all that political talent, experience and vision.
Philip Como, who is retired after a career in sales, is a former member of the Nassau County Planning Commission and is treasurer of the Fire Department in Sea Cliff, where he lives.
