By Scott Brinton
Nassau County now is caught up amid a quiet revolution that, when all is said and done, will make about one-third of residents happy, one-third annoyed, perhaps even angry, and one-third likely won't worry much about the end result.
We're talking about the county's three-year effort to reassess all of its 415,000 residential and commercial properties a project last undertaken so broadly six decades ago.
Reassessment? What's that all about, you might ask.
The answer is at once simple, yet highly complex. Properties are being photographed and examined by appraisal experts from Mineola-based Cole, Layer and Trumble to determine their current market value. Property taxes will then be recalculated according to today's real-estate prices. The process, which gets under way in earnest this year and is scheduled for completion in 2003, is tedious and monumental.
For years, folks have talked about revamping Nassau County's antiquated property-tax system. Until reassessment is complete, the county will continue to assess homes according to 1938 building costs, with 1964 land values added in.
Estimates are that, after reassessment, about 33 percent of properties in Nassau will see higher county tax bills, 33 percent lower, and 33 percent will remain the same.
Who will see their taxes go up or down or stay level is to be determined. Assumptions can be made, though. Many in wealthier communities will likely find that their county property taxes have risen. Many in poorer areas will likely find their taxes reduced.
Real-estate experts say that, as a general rule, solidly middle-class communities will be least affected by reassessment. Jay Helsinger is owner of Custom South Shore Real Estate in Merrick and Long Beach, two middle-income communities where most home prices range from $200,000 to $400,000. Nobody seems overly concerned, said Helsinger. I think realtors would rather see it the new way [than] the old. Every house is going to be based on its true value today.
As long as [residents] are not paying more than their neighbor, as long as they're paying as much as everybody else, they're going to be happy.
Critics of reassessment charge that it's expensive for a county suffering through a fiscal crisis $43 million expensive.
And in the end, they say, the best that any appraiser can do is estimate a property's current worth, meaning mistakes in assessments and appeals by homeowners are inevitable. Richard Libbey, a real-estate developer whose grandfather built much of Atlantic Beach during the 1920s, said, [Appraisers] make assumptions. Assumptions usually lead to errors.
Libbey also said the county would have to continually reassess to keep its tax rolls current, as real-estate values fluctuate annually. I could see myself going to fight the valuation of my assessment every year, he said.
I don't see the government coming down [in their assessment] if the market goes down.
Nassau Assessor Charles O'Shea (R-North Merrick) said the county intends to reassess properties annually after 2003 to maintain tax equity.
Reassessment proponents also say that plenty of residents already appeal their assessments, seeking reductions in their property taxes. Last year alone, Nassau residents filed for 50,000 tax certiorari and won 90 percent of their cases, costing the county $100 million in assessment reductions and legal fees.
County Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick), who made reassessment a campaign issue in 1999, said that residents would continue to seek reductions in their county taxes after reassessment. However, far fewer will because their properties will closely reflect their current worth. He estimates that Nassau will pay $10 million to $15 million annually for tax certs, as opposed to $100 million.
Denenberg believes such savings will eventually give Nassau a budget surplus, rather than its usual deficit. I saw [reassessment] as the only way to balance the budget within the next decade, he said.
Modest gains and losses
Legis. Patrick Williams (D-Uniondale), an ardent reassessment supporter, said that those who expect a great drop in their property taxes will likely wind up disappointed. The important thing is that we're only talking about the county portion of the tax bill, he said. Some people may have an unrealistic expectation. It's not going to be a great windfall.
Reassessment will primarily affect the county part of a tax bill, which amounts to only 19 percent of the total. Sixty-five percent goes to the schools and the other 16 percent to the town and special districts, such as fire or water.
Denenberg, a Manhattan-based attorney, explained that, in lower-income Roosevelt, a home might be over-assessed by comparison to residential properties in other communities, particularly those in an upscale area such as Great Neck. In the past, that Roosevelt home would have paid a disproportionately high amount in Nassau County taxes. Once reassessed, the homeowner thus could expect a drop in county taxes.
That same home's school tax bill, though, would likely fall in line with that of other residential properties in the Roosevelt School District, as homes in most school districts are valued similarly.
An issue of fairness
A handful of county legislators, all Republican, have said they worry reassessment will bring a tax burden that many residents, particularly the elderly, might be unable to bear. Peter Schmidt (R-Massapequa), the Legislature's minority leader, said that, come 2003, about 130,000 Nassau residents will immediately see their county assessments rise, leaving them in a state of what he called tax shock.
Last March, when the matter went before the Legislature for a vote, Schmidt called for reassessment to be phased in over several years, giving those residents whose assessments jump a break.
Residents in my district will both be helped and harmed by the reassessment of their homes, said Schmidt. I am not willing, however, to vote for this until such time that protections are in place [for] residents who may see an increase in their assessments. That is the right, fair, responsible and prudent thing to do.
Williams, a mortgage banker by profession and who is African-American, said, We didn't want to have any homeowner experience tax shock. Legislators are thus negotiating to place a 6-percent annual cap on the county tax increase any homeowner might face; however, whether the proposal will become policy remains uncertain.
Step forward, step back
Assessor O'Shea said, The reassessment project will be the most important step taken in over 60 years with respect to modernizing and improving the county's tax-assessment system.
Legis. Williams said homes in his district, considered among Nassau's poorest, were often dramatically over-assessed in the past. You'll have a house that is valued at $120,000, he said. It was being assessed as if it were $180,000.
The most important thing is that my community now believes that the system is relatively fair.
Diana Coleman is the Roosevelt activist who brought the lawsuit in State Supreme Court (for reassessment history, see shaded box) that led to reassessment. Coleman said that, after reassessment, Roosevelt will look more like a disadvantaged community on paper, making it eligible for greater federal and state aid for its crumbling school system, among other services.
She, however, was reluctant to call reassessment a victory for her hometown. In the end, she said, Roosevelt residents whose assessments go down won't see much, if any, savings because higher county taxes are on the way, after they remained level for several years. Nassau is raising taxes 23 percent over the next four years, after a string of Republican-engineered county budgets racked up deficits estimated anywhere between $120 million and more than $300 million.
Roosevelt residents could use the savings that reassessment will likely bring them now, not later, Coleman said. [Reassessment] is a long way off, she said. There's no immediate gratification.
History behind reassessment
By Scott Brinton
Roosevelt community activist Diana Coleman fired the shot that ultimately felled Nassau County's outmoded and highly politicized tax-assessment system.
With legal aid from the American Civil Liberties Union, Coleman and four other African-American residents filed a complaint in State Supreme Court against the county on Oct. 30, 1997, seeking reassessment of Nassau's roughly 370,000 residential properties.
The ACLU attacked assessment as a racial issue. It contended that Nassau's tax system discriminated against minority residents, whose homes were over-assessed, and violated federal civil-rights laws.
Donald Shaffer, one of the ACLU attorneys who fought the assessment system, said Nassau's elected leaders discounted the charges. "They said, it's none of your business. We don't discriminate. You and no one else is going to tell us what kind of an assessment system we're going to have," said Shaffer.
Nassau tried and failed to have the "Coleman case" dismissed. F. Dana Winslow, New York Supreme Court justice, ordered a trial. The ACLU began a multi-year, in-depth investigation of the county's assessment system to prepare its case.
Over the years, the ACLU found, inequities in the assessment system had built up. Thousands of homes in poorer, often minority communities were paying too much in county property taxes.
County Legis. Patrick Williams said estimates were that, of the 35,000 homes in his district, roughly half were over-assessed for the county portion of their tax bills. His district takes in Roosevelt, Uniondale, North Freeport and parts of Baldwin, East Meadow and Hempstead, which, except for East Meadow, are primarily minority communities and range from poor to middle class.
Coleman said that many poor residents in her hometown were -- and continue to be -- forced out of their homes because of overly high property taxes. "People can't afford their homes, not because of the mortgage payment, but because of their taxes," she said.
Meanwhile, many homes in Nassau's wealthiest, primarily white communities, such as the Five Towns and Garden City, were often found to be under-assessed, meaning homeowners there were paying too little in county property taxes.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the New York State Attorney General's Office started their own investigations into the case. Both eventually signed on as plaintiffs in the ACLU's complaint.
Williams was called to testify for the plaintiffs. He then withdrew as a witness upon winning election to the Legislature in November 1999.
Roger Tilles, the Woodbury real-estate developer whose family name graces Long Island University's Tilles Center, also filed suit, seeking to have the county's roughly 17,000 commercial properties reassessed, said Sharon Commissiong, deputy majority counsel for the Legislature.
In a surprise move, Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta (R-North Merrick) and county Assessor Charles O'Shea (R-North Merrick) called for reassessment. "Politicians will sometimes do the right thing, but only after everything else has failed," the ACLU's Shaffer said.
In March 2000, the county ironed out an out-of-court settlement that ultimately allowed for reassessment of both residential and commercial properties. The Legislature approved the agreement 15-4, with only Republicans, including Minority Leader Peter Schmidt (R-Massapequa), voting against it.
The Tilles suit is pending, said Commissiong. "We are nevertheless [reassessing] commercial property, as well," she said.
