NIFA to audit 'broken' Nassau assessment system

The Nassau Interim Finance Authority is launching an audit of the county's Department of Assessment, prompting allegations from the Blakeman administration that the state-appointed agency was politically motivated in an election year. 

According to a request for proposals, NIFA officials in their role as fiscal watchdogs, are seeking a firm to dive deeply into the department and the Assessment Review Commission to determine whether the county’s property tax rolls are "accurate and equitable."

They are expected to select a firm by February, officials said, with a report expected to be completed by the summer.

"The [assessment] system is broken and it needs to be fixed," NIFA chairman Richard Kessel said. "We want to be able to ... make it equitable for all the residents of the county."

The audit comes as Republican Bruce Blakeman starts his second term as county executive and last month became his party's choice to run for governor after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Schuylerville) dropped out of the race.

Blakeman is likely to face Gov. Kathy Hochul in the general election in November. With $20 million in her campaign war chest, Hochul has a significant monetary edge over Blakeman, who has raised $1.2 million, according to recent financial disclosures.

Blakeman, in an emailed statement to Newsday late Thursday, said NIFA "has no business auditing the assessment department."

In a wide-ranging comment, he noted Nassau voters "overwhelmingly rejected" the practice of reassessing property values for county taxation, then shifted to the unrelated issue of immigration. He also defended the county's financial position by accurately pointing to several bond upgrades that occurred in his first-term in office, a testament to the county's creditworthiness. 

"We will resist any attempt by Hochul's political allies on the NIFA board to hurt the taxpayers of Nassau County," Blakeman said.

Nassau’s property tax assessment program has long been a contentious issue. With some residents paying among the highest property tax bills in the nation. Nearly 60% of homeowners file grievances, a legal processes that challenges the county’s assessed values but shifts the tax burden to remaining taxpayers, Newsday previously reported. Property tax collection is the county's second largest source of revenue after sales tax, according to the county budget.

Among its powers, NIFA can audit any county agency. In 2024, the group audited how the county outsourced legal work to private law firms. It found the county attorney’s office at times directly hired firms, making exceptions to the bidding process and spending almost quadruple on legal fees.

NIFA considered launching the audit last year, but held off as Blakeman ran for re-election in November, Kessel said, adding that the move was “completely non-partisan.”

“What’re we gonna do?” he said. “He’s gonna run every year for something and we’re going to put it off?”

Blakeman in 2021 won a close county executive’s race against Democratic incumbent Laura Curran on a promise to "fix a broken assessment system" but critics contend little progress has been made with property tax rolls frozen, causing more uncertainty in the system.

 Fairness in the assessment system and how Nassau levies taxes from property owners is also being challenged in state appeals court. In October, a lawsuit alleging Nassau County discriminated against minority homeowners’ tax assessments was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court. An issue in the case is whether freezing the tax rolls disproportionately affected property owners in communities of color.

The unanimous decision overturned an earlier ruling by a Nassau judge and transferred the case to Queens.

One of the issues with the county’s assessment department is low staffing, Kessel said. "But even if staffing was high, the rolls have been frozen for a number of years now. We’re concerned about the equity of that," he added.

The Department of Assessment had 151 employees in 2024, down from 181 when Blakeman first took office in 2022, according to the Nassau comptroller's payroll records. 

Nassau County Comptroller Elaine Phillips, a Republican, joined Blakeman in pushing back against the audit, calling it "an unequivocal misuse of taxpayer dollars."