LEGISLATURE PASSES LOCAL LAW TO CORRECT ELIMINATION OF VETERANS EXEMPTIONS
Nassau County Legislator John R. Ferretti, Jr. and members of the Legislature held an emergency session on February 11th, to pass legislation that fixes the egregious error eliminating Cold War Veteran Exemptions. The error, made by the Department of Assessment, wrongly eliminated tax exemptions for 762 Nassau County veterans.
“It seems like every day we hear about a new error in the Assessment office,” Legislator Ferretti said. “This one is now affecting our veterans. Previously, we called on David Moog to resign his position as Assessor, I am reaffirming it now. Mister Moog has got to go!”
The Cold War Veterans Property Tax Exemption was voted on by the County Legislature in March 2018 for reauthorization. It was signed into law by County Executive Curran on April 2nd, 2018. The exemption is available to veterans who served between September 2, 1945 and December 26, 1991, and can eliminate as much as 15% of assessed value. The March 2018 law went into effect immediately, and the data for the exemption would be used to generate the general tax bills in January 2019.
The resolution, passed in emergency session by the County Legislature on February 11th, corrects the Assessment error, and ensures that the tax bills for the second half of the year will be corrected to prevent further problems. It provides approximately $176,000 to fund reimbursement checks to veterans affected by loss of the exemption.
This isn’t the first error that has occurred since roll out of the Curran Administration’s reassessment announcement. Among the errors and mistakes: at least 10,000 returned pieces of mail containing assessment information; 40,000 admitted errors in assessment; 60,000 changes in tax impact notices online after errors; 400,000 mistaken calls to residents concerning the senior tax exemptions; 20,000 changes necessarily because vacant land was over assessed; 18,400 tentative assessments posted online and sent to tax certification firms by mistake; and 425,000 properties having incorrect and misleading tax impact statements due to 85,000 values lowered in the tentative tax roll.