Property-tax plan vote postponed

The Nassau County Legislature’s hearing on its 2011 budget ended on Monday without a vote on a proposal to nix the county’s longstanding guarantee to pay for property owners’ challenges of its tax assessments. If passed, the plan would effectively shift that burden to school districts and local governments, which would have to defend the county’s assessments and pay for successful challenges by property owners.

The plan, proposed by County Executive Ed Mangano in his 2011 budget, has met stiff opposition from school district officials and PTAs since it was announced. Legislators said the vote must occur by Oct. 29 for the county to meet its legal requirement to pass next year’s budget. Early reports that a vote on the guarantee had taken place on Monday proved untrue.

Dozens of protesters from throughout Nassau County converged on the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola on Monday morning to see whether the Legislature would vote on the proposal. Rockville Centre Board of Education President Liz Dion, Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, Assistant Superintendent Robert Bartels and members of the district’s PTAs were among those who attended.

“Our position has been that at a time when we should be looking in the opposite direction, to consolidate costs to reduce the burden on the taxpayer, Mangano would do just the opposite and shift the burden back to municipalities and school districts,” Johnson said at a recent school board meeting. “Their taxpayers would be burdened with paying for county mistakes. It’s dead wrong, and the exact opposite of consolidating services and cooperating. It’s not in the best interests of the taxpayers of Nassau County.”

On Monday, protesters were met by a counter-protest by more than two dozen people in favor of Mangano’s budget and his proposal to eliminate the county guarantee.

If passed, the plan would end a practice that has been in place in Nassau County since 1938.