In almost any election, the race for North Hempstead Receiver of Taxes gets very little notice.

The position is mostly technical and has been ably held since 2010 by Charles Berman, a low-key Democrat.

But 2023 is unlike perhaps any other year in North Hempstead history after two years of disputes between Town Supervisor Jennifer DeSena, who is running for re-election on the Republican line, and the four Democrats who formed the majority of the Town Council.

With control of every other town and county government, Nassau Republicans are perhaps eyeing the North Hempstead races as a chance for a clean sweep in the country – something that would not be very good for voters.

Town Councilwoman Veronica Lurvey, who frequently bumped heads with DeSena, is running on the Democratic line after her seat was essentially removed during redistricting.

She touts her experience and professionalism, having worked at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP from 1994 to 2012, first as a legal assistant, and then rising to the position of counsel, while raising two sons.

At Skadden, she led teams on a variety of corporate finance, banking, and restructuring transactions, as well as advising companies on their disclosure obligations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

She is opposed by Mary Jo Collins, a Village of Flower Hill trustee who had a 40-year career in financial services spent mainly in the fixed-income securities markets.

We endorse Lurvey for several reasons.

Both candidates promise to make it easier and possibly less expensive to pay their property taxes and to hold seminars that show taxpayers how to reduce their taxes through exemption and assessment challenges.

The challenges are especially important because of Nassau County’s dysfunctional assessment system in which people who challenge their assessments can count on paying less in taxes than people who don’t challenge their taxes – even if their homes are identical.

This dysfunction is a problem created by Ed Mangano and Bruce Blakeman, two Nassau County executives who never reassessed property in the 10 years they have served.

Blakeman successfully ran against Democrat County Executive Laura Curran, who did reassess all Nassau properties. Blakeman falsely claimed Curran raised taxes by reassessing homes and appears committed to allowing the assessments on which the county bases property taxes to get less and less accurate.

Lurvey has promised to follow Berman’s example and present errors in tax rolls the county issues to the town on which the town bases its tax bills.

We are not as confident that Collins will be aggressive in pursuing errors made under her fellow Republicans.

Our concern is raised by Collins saying in ads and a submission to this newspaper that her No. 1 focus would be working “alongside Supervisor Jen DeSena and the Town Board to help cut taxes.”

There are three problems with this.

DeSena, a fellow Republican, might lose to Jon Kaiman, a Democrat.

Will she not work with Kaiman? And by identifying the person and not the position Collins appears to be injecting an element of partisanship that is certainly undesirable in an already divided town.

The second problem is that it’s not the job of the receiver of taxes to participate in discussions about cutting taxes. That is the job of the supervisor, the town board and North Hempstead’s professional staff, which has been fleeing their posts because of the town’s dysfunction.

The third problem is that cutting taxes, which has been the focus of Republican candidates’ campaigns this year, might not be a good idea next year. If nothing else, it raises the possibility of more divisiveness in the town.

Collins also declined to sit one-on-one with Blank Slate Media after DeSena was asked if President Biden won in a free and fair election in 2020 and if she would vote for former President Trump if was indicted on one or more of the 91 charges facing him. She said she did not want to face “national” issues in the  interview

We think anyone who may be asked to swear an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution ought to be willing to answer those questions.

Lurvey has been an effective council member with a strong background in town operations and the needs of North Hempstead. Her legal background also shows she has the capacity to handle the job of receiver of taxes.

We strongly endorse Veronica Lurvey for receiver of taxes in the Town of North Hempstead.