Vote on county property-tax plan to take place by Oct. 29

The Nassau Legislature's hearing on its 2011 budget became heated on Monday over a proposal to nix the county's longstanding guarantee to pay for property owners' challenges to its tax assessments. If passed, the plan would effectively shift that burden to school districts and towns.

County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican from Bethpage, recently included the plan in his 2011 budget. Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick, said a vote on the proposal must occur by Oct. 29 in order for the county to meet its legal requirement to pass next year's budget by the end of the month. Denenberg said he expects the Legislature to vote 11-8 to do away with the guarantee, with the Republican majority voting as a bloc for it.

According to the proposal, school districts and local governments would have to defend the county’s assessments and pay for successful challenges by property owners. School officials said in interviews that requiring districts to pick up responsibility for tax challenges would only tax their already stretched budgets, potentially causing teacher layoffs, while producing no tax savings.

Denenberg noted that Mangano promised in his 2009 campaign to freeze county property taxes. "Passing along a tax burden is not freezing taxes," said Denenberg from the floor of the Legislature. The county, he said, should focus on correcting its property-tax rolls, as Mangano had promised.

Denenberg is encouraging his constituents to write to the county and to attend the budget vote to protest the plan to eliminate the guarantee.

In reply to criticism about his plan, Mangano issued this prepared statement: "The county executive's reform plan not only fixes the assessment system but also cleans up the $1.6 billion in debt and outstanding liabilities he inherited from the [Legislature’s Minority Leader] Diane Yatauro and her Democratic colleagues."

Mangano said of the guarantee:

•Nassau is the only county in the U.S. to provide the "county guarantee."

•By ending the guarantee, schools and towns that receive tax dollars in error would have to pay back those tax dollars.