Democratic County Executive Candidate Tom Suozzi (Glen Cove) last week accused County Executive Edward Mangano (R-Bethpage) of creating a back-door tax increase on property owners – an argument that drew quick rebuke from the Mangano campaign.
Suozzi held a press conference Saturday, flanked by school board members from across the county, Democratic legislators and Democratic comptroller candidate Howard Weitzman, to criticize Mangano for increased school tax bills among residents who did not challenge their tax assessments.
“This is because of the failed policies of the Mangano administration that is running a campaign going around saying they didn’t increase people’s taxes,” said Suozzi, who held the county executive’s seat from 2002 through 2009 before being unseated in a narrow loss to Mangano. “How can it be that Mr. Mangano is going around Nassau County and telling people he did not increase taxes when this is happening in household after household after household throughout Nassau County?”
Suozzi’s criticism centered on Mangano’s home property tax-settlement program – an effort to reduce the county’s backlog of tax refund claims by settling the overwhelming majority of assessment challenges.
Suozzi said the system was designed to benefit tax certiorari lawyers who had donated to Mangano’s election campaign, and has led to higher taxes for non-challenging homeowners who had to essentially make up the difference for those who got refunds.
Mangano spokesman Brian Nevin rejected the criticism, saying that the administration had protected the rights of taxpayers to challenge assessments and hit Suozzi on his father’s partnership in a law firm that handles tax refund cases.
“Taxes only go up because schools hike them – the assessment system doesn’t take in any dollars. Tom Suozzi clearly opposes the right of homeowners to fight their taxes and its no surprise considering he hiked them by 23 percent. Ed Mangano froze property taxes his entire term and stands with homeowners in their fight against higher school taxes,” wrote Nevin in an e-mail. “Tom Suozzi’s family made over $10 million by helping big businesses grieve their taxes at the expense of homeowners.”
Suozzi’s campaign offensive on tax rates runs counter to Mangano’s messaging, which has touted his refusal to hike property tax levies and attacked Suozzi for the major hike he approved shortly after taking office in 2002. Suozzi has defended the hike as necessary to restore the county’s financial stability.
The press conference also featured a piece of campaign theater, with Suozzi displaying a poster board of Mangano’s personal school tax returns, showing a 24 percent hike since Mangano took office.
Nassau County Legislator Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick) tied the criticisms to the South Shore’s devastation after Hurricane Sandy, saying that residents who did not challenge their returns were both disproportionately taxed and hit by frozen assessments that did not take into account damage from the storm.
“Thank you for raising taxes on the South Shore,” Denenberg said. “Thank you for freezing the South Shore in the wake of the worst disaster, that you had to be blind not to see that our values went down.”
Nevin called those charges false and wrote that the county had ensured affected homeowners had the chance to reduce their assessments after Sandy.
“It is not true,” Nevin wrote “Eligible Sandy affected homes that filed the property damage review form with the [county] Department of Assessment received a reduction in their assessed values based on the numbers given to us by FEMA or by the documentation sent to the Department.”
The press conference also featured a brief speech by Roslyn businessman Adam Haber, Suozzi’s primary opponent who was brought back into the party fold after Suozzi secured the Democratic nomination Sept. 10.
Haber criticized Mangano’s efforts to end the county’s responsibility for paying out refunds on school taxes, and Suozzi pledged that should he win the election he would drop the county’s current lawsuit seeking to end the county guarantee.
