Blame game in delayed tax refunds

Democrats and Republicans in Nassau are at an impasse over millions of dollars in residential tax refunds, with each blaming the other for delaying checks to about 17,000 homeowners.

Earlier this month, GOP County Executive Edward Mangano sent letters to those homeowners saying Democrats were denying him permission to borrow $102 million, in part for property tax settlements. He said Democrats were trying to hold the homeowners "hostage" in an effort to "force me to raise property taxes 25 percent" to pay the settlements.

On Wednesday, legislative Democrats said at a news conference in Mineola that they would not approve any more borrowing until the $20 million in refunds to homeowners is paid. Mangano, they said, already has $14.7 million available and could tap operating funds for the rest. Republicans control the legislature by a 10-9 margin, and would need a supermajority to approve any new borrowing.

"We know that there is money . . . to pay homeowners . . . but the Mangano administration has sat on those funds for over a year and tried to force our hand into lumping together $102 million in [borrowing] without the ability to thoroughly review each case," said Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams.

Brian Nevin, a spokesman for Mangano, called the Democrats' refusal to approve more borrowing "nothing more than political games and politics at its worst."

Nassau has struggled for years to pay tax refunds.

Nassau is the only county in New York that conducts countywide assessments; it pays all the refunds for school, town and other special district taxes even though it receives only about 20 percent of total tax revenues. In recent years the refunds have cost the county about $80 million a year, almost all of it borrowed.

Nassau in 2010 passed legislation to force the taxing districts to reimburse the county for refunds it made on their behalf. A state Supreme Court justice last month rejected a challenge to the law, but school districts said they intended to appeal. The districts argue that if the county makes mistakes in its assessments, it should pay the refunds.But Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said the "impasse has more to do with power politics between the majority and minority parties than with any specific issue at hand. The minority Democrats have very little leverage day-to-day, and when they get it, as they [have] now with the votes needed for borrowing, they're asserting it as aggressively as they can."