State legislators approved a five-year phase-in of property tax increases and decreases for Nassau County taxpayers when passing the state budget in early April.
At the end of April, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran submitted local legislation to the County Legislature to ratify the Taxpayer Protection Plan, which is expected to ease the shock from increased property taxes as a result of the countywide reassessment.
County legislators of the Democratic Minority Caucus took to the steps of the Legislature building in Mineola last Wednesday to demand Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) and the Majority Caucus take the necessary steps towards implementing and ratifying the five-year phase-in.
A statement from the Republican Majority Caucus said that while Republican legislators have every intention of passing the Taxpayer Protection Plan, they won’t until they are able to tell their constituents that their assessments are correct and came from a fair and accurate process.
“The Democrats should be doing the same to protect their constituents,” said the Majority’s deputy director of communications, Chris Boyle.
Curran holds firm that the home values calculated under the reassessment are fair and accurate. She touts an independent analysis conducted earlier in the year which concluded that the inaccurate and unfair wide disparities among home values that developed when an unqualified assessor was in office had been eliminated.
To further illustrate the Majority’s concerns, the statement also said that the 2020-21 tax notices that Curran and county Democrats said would be posted online have yet to appear.
Under the five-year phase-in, taxpayers would see an additional 20 percent of their total expected tax increase or decrease each year for five years.
The county Legislature has until November 2020 to vote to implement the phase-in for it to go into effect for the 2020-21 tax season.
