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Curran submits legislation for five-year phase-in, extends grievance deadline

Jessica Parks
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran submitted legislation for the Taxpayer Protection Plan in April. (Photo by Jessica Parks)

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran submitted local legislation to phase in assessment increases and decreases over a period of five years on Tuesday. She also announced the extension of the grievance deadline to Friday at 11:59 p.m.

The Taxpayer Protection Plan was included in the New York state budget passed April 1 and requires approval from the Nassau County Legislature to take effect. 

Curran said she is sure that the bill will pass the Legislature.

She also addressed the Assessment Review Commission’s website being down multiple times on Monday and Tuesday, the night before and day of the grievance deadline.

She attributed the issues to “the incredible need” to modernize the county’s technology and said she is working with the website vendor to identify the problem with the website.

Curran reminded taxpayers that she has already extended the deadline by “an unprecedented 60 days.”

Meanwhile, Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) said he has contacted the Assessment Review Commission and the county executive requesting the deadline for filing a grievance be extended to Tuesday, May 7.

Every resident deserves the right to challenge their assessment if they think that the county has assigned the wrong value,” he said. “It is now clear that technological problems at the county may cause many residents to miss the deadline. We cannot allow this latest problem with reassessment to defeat the rights of the residents.”

Like the broken technology she inherited, Curran said, she also inherited a broken assessment system which she revealed updated statistics for.

She said contrary to previous calculations, more than half of the county’s taxpayers, 55 percent, will see a decrease in their property tax value due to the reassessment, exemptions and phase-in.

“Property is worth much more than it was the last time it was assessed,” Curran said. She emphasized that “just because your assessed value increased, it doesn’t mean your property taxes increased.”

The new Taxpayer Protection Plan statements with estimated property taxes for the 2020-21 tax year will be made available online at mynassauproperty.com in the coming weeks, Curran said.

The estimates in the five-year phase-in are calculated using county, town, special district and school district taxes for the 2018-19 tax year and the county’s newly assessed home values.

Curran said the statements also include tax exemptions, adjustments to the assessment roll that came from input during the preliminary grievance period, successful grievances during the 2018-19 tax year and the impact of the five-year phase-in.  

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