Questions over assessment panel layoffs

There are 40,000 settlement offers sitting in boxes at Nassau's Assessment Review Commission. They've been there for weeks, rather than out and into the hands of property owners waiting for news on their pleas for lower assessments.

In years past, those 40,000 settlement offers likely would have amounted to 40,000 thumbs up for refunds. But this time around, according to a county spokesman, the boxes are now holding scrap paper.

"The policies and procedures of ARC are being changed," according to one response to a series of written questions I forwarded to the county on the issue Monday. "The status quo of take-it-or-leave-it offers is over," according to an email from Katie Grilli-Robles, a county spokeswoman.

"Instead, conferencing of cases will be done, so a much larger percentage of grievances can be settled at the first level without a tax refund issue for the county," the email said.

The exchange appears to mark the first public airing of a significant change in county policy. And it comes on the eve of a scheduled legislative vote on honoring County Executive Edward Mangano's request to lay off 128 of the county's lowest-paid employees.

Let us pause here to note that layoffs will not touch the highest paid employees on the public payroll, from police to political appointees. And that there's yet to be any indication that employees who work for other, independently elected officials, from the staff of the legislature to the office of district attorney are subject to the needed belt-tightening.

Tuesday, county Civil Service Employees Association (the only county union not blessed with a no-layoff clause) members are on the chopping block. That includes parks employees, such as the farmer at Old Bethpage Restoration, whose job includes chasing down the rare domestic animal who tries to break free.

The biggest cut, however, will come from ARC and the department that sets county assessments. This is a very big deal because successful property tax appeals -- and the interest they generate -- remain a major block to righting Nassau's finances.

Tuesday, the county legislature has a chance to shed some long needed light on what's happening in the county. And whether residents -- even with cuts -- will get bang, rather than burn, for their dizzyingly high property tax buck.

The county's fiscal troubles require cost cutting -- hacking -- if Nassau is to remain fiscally afloat. But it's essential that residents know how radical surgery in one place is going to impact the county overall.

What's the impact of losing so many assessment employees? Especially when a record number of residents are challenging assessments? Thus far, there's been no adequate answer.

Significant changes in public policy -- such as the new direction for ARC -- should be openly debated rather than disclosed in an email.

So should the CSEA's contention that the county wants to lay off public employees to give the work of assessment -- a core county function -- to contractors. And if it goes to contractors, is how they go about their work transparent enough so that property owners have some clue as to whether the results are reasonable and fair?

Another troubling issue: Mangano recently asked the legislature to approve a contract for a firm called Standard Valuation Services for $600,000 -- for work the firm began in January. Why is the contract -- which could go on to cover work up to a cost of $2.5 million -- going to the legislature after the work began? And why didn't it go to the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the county's control board?

There are questions. And Tuesday the legislators -- as is their job -- ought to get answers.